The worm is in the apple, the fruit has fallen into the abyss and since then into the sand, creeping along the dunes, then to the surface of muddy waters, a strange three-headed nematode burrows into the cavities of the ground and contorts to flush out its venomous substance, Shapeless Mass, the 2021 album delivered by the Menton trio. By what royal road does the inner marrow vibrate? That's the question, pinning down the Wormsand specimen at last. My precious metal detector pointed me in the direction of this new album, which has plenty of depth.
The king is naked, his crown is that of a bygone glory. Time has done its work, the darkness no longer allows itself to be pierced. Wormsand's sonic mutation is formal: at first glance, we're witnessing a musical deformation dripping from all sides. Black Heaven, which was presented to us as a single, already indicated this new path where the composition departs strictly from stoner, with a distinctly less camouflaged vocal and bursts of riffs interspersed with nuances, rhythmic breaks and a doom paste with grunge overtones. Even more recently, the album opener Daydream, with its soaringly beautiful video, introduces us to a realm of lunar compositions evocative of lost paradises.
The trio dig even deeper into the material, and Digging Deep is the resurgence of this breakthrough exhuming a grandiose darkness, with sludge exploding in bloody spurts, and crepuscular voices searching the sky for light before they run out. It's this oxygen from which the title track You, The King frees itself to breathe purifying fire into every cavity, a combustion that you can easily feel in your depths with a fade-out instrumental finale. Between Drown and The Crown, the dividing line is infinitesimal, making these two tracks just as inseparable as Julien, Clément and Tom. This combination culminates in The Final Dive, cavernous and no less haunting for its melodic lines. Wormsand concludes with a chilling finale, To Die Alone. From this quasi-embryonic substrate emerges an ambitious work that lays its foundations, a monolithic music whose framework only collapses at the end of the concert in a memorable crash. The production is monumental, entrusted to Jimmy Goncalves and Nico Aanklacht. There's no doubt that Wormsand will conquer new territories, and the battle is already won.
