Versatile took their time. Three years separate their first EP, Atra Bilis, from their first album. In that time, the Swiss industrial black metal band have honed their horrific theatrics, particularly on stage. A nightmarish, grotesque universe full of deformed monsters crawling through the mire: how can you resist? Especially as Les Litanies de Vide contains only previously unreleased tracks, there's no need to fear any repetition of Atra Bilis, and their cabinet of curiosities promises to be full of surprises.
Particular care has been taken to create the right atmosphere. Géhenne, the orchestral intro with its gothic flamboyance, has that epic, cinematic grandiloquence that reminds us of the best moments of Carach Angren or Cradle of Filth. It's almost a pity that Versatile don't leave more room for this kind of dark reverie, because it gives their Court of Miracles an extra splendour and emphasis. Let's not quibble too much, though, because Les Litanies du Vide soon get down to business. Black and death metal influences, deep guttural vocals... while Versatile attack fast and hard with Enfant Zéro, the band's real speciality isn't necessarily in these demonstrations of strength.
It's when silence bursts in briefly, spectacularly, that Versatile suddenly takes off. There are the texts recited by Hatred Salander, whose deviant storyteller's diction is of the finest effect, and these martial rhythms whose heaviness is that of limping creatures, horrors advancing into the night that nothing can stop. Choruses, lulls that don't reassure at all, a demented narrator: the universe is particularly successful and impressive. Drawing on industrial, whether for the merciless rhythms or a few techno flashes (La Régente Blême or the more mystical Ieshara), Versatile breaks free of moulds and models to give life to its monster, its creature sewn from various influences and desires. A crazy thing with an elusive silhouette and a voracious appetite.
Les Litanies du Vide fascinates in the same way that a superb beast from our sickest nightmares can obsess us. Just when your attention might wane under the repetitive onslaught, the intensity of Morphée, with its possessed declamations and more hallucinatory, dreamlike passages, reminds us that Versatile's talent lies not just in their polymorphous experiments but in their constant narrative suggestion, their ability to conjure up the darkest images in our imagination. It's obvious in the last part of the album: Monstre oozes grand-guignol, the madness of a demented creator and the rancour of a foul creature before Alter Ego takes on an amusing meta dimension... By inviting Shaârghot into a whirlwind of industrial metal insanity, Versatile gains even more madness, while some of the lyrics take on an amusing double meaning ("Alter Ego, my inner shadow, Hollow psycho, never get rid of me, I am your flesh, you cannot rip me out!", the universes of the two bands are consistently respected, while the oiled-up cyberpunk whirlwind seems, in turn, to become one of the monstrous figures who inspire this whole theatre of horrors).
With their sense of macabre poetry, of beauty in the most extreme ugliness, Versatile release a generous first album that hits hard. But what really stands out are the lyrics, the ghostly, gloomy melodies, the side-stepping - in short, everything that makes this universe so singular and palpable. Behind the efficiency and the desire to get inside, there's a real richness just waiting to be exploited and appreciated, and a delectable attention to detail. Les Litanies du Vide, their monster, is now on the loose, hungry. It's a pleasure to be absorbed by its gluttonous darkness.
