La Morsure du Christ? Christ on a bike, more like… as I’ve touched on in several reviews this year, the standard of extreme metal appears to be rising like the levels of the sea at the moment. And every time I listen to Seth‘s new album – their sixth in a twenty-odd year history that happily shows no signs of slowing down – I keep twitchily looking in the direction of the Thames Flood Barrier to assure myself that these French buggers aren’t sending the flood my way…

Seriously, this is top-draw black metal if that happens to be what you’re in the market for. These blokes are no slouches, with a collective CV that includes names like Melted Space, Sinsaenum, Enthroned, Vorkreist, Loudblast and Glorior Belli, and they bring all that experience to bear on LMdC. Both band and label Season of Mist see this album as a kind of sequel to their 1998 debut Les blessures de l’âme, and, though the whiff of the nineties is never far away, this album is more, much more than just some sort of bagatelle of throwback nostalgia.

The rage in Saint Vincent‘s voice on Sacrifice de Sang is real, and now, not some sort of black metal rose-tinted memory a la recherche du temps perdu. Likewise the drumming of Alsvid is state of the art black metal battery circa 2021. There’s nothing old-hat about the kicking he’s delivering to his kit. On Ex-Cathédrale he seems to develop a couple of extra limbs – easily on eof the best drumming performances I’ve heard this year. And then there are the songs… Hymne au Vampire (Acte III) delivers a scalding mix of black, death and traditional metal, working off of the touchstone of some superb guitars from Heimoth and Drakhian and the gothic keyboard overload of Pierre La Pape.

Métal Noir is one of those most curious of beasts – a possible black metal hit single – combining a titanic call to arms from Saint Vincente and the sort of melodies embedded in the solid, obsidian rock of the music that most bands would kill for. I lied about the hit single bit, by the way, but really – don’t be surprised if you hear your Milkman humming this track over the next few weeks…

I’m jesting of course, but I don’t mean to be flippant. Seth are utterly rampant on La Morsure du Christ, and in the terms framed by the record company and the band I’d have to say that this does indeed draw a direct and raging line back to the 1998 debut. But, and it’s a big but, everything here, whilst paying due deference to the old, is bigger, better, more blasphemous and just downright heavier. The best French black metal album of all time? I’m not anywhere near enough qualified to comment. But it’s the best of it’s kind of heard this year, and that’ll do for me.

La Morsure du Christ is out now.