The Foetal Mind - The Grand Contraction (2010)

Beginning life as a lo-fi bedroom depressive black metal band, The Foetal Mind of Perpignan, Languedoc-Roussillon, France issued five demos between '07-'09 before inking a deal with Canadian label Hypnotic Dirge Records and issuing their debut, 'Suprême Cheminement' in late December of '09. The debut contained many of the typical characteristics found in depressive black metal and was ultimately a very boring record for me.


This late December 14th, 2010 release titled, 'The Grand Contraction' however is surprisingly quite different in style, in fact they've shed almost all of their past characteristics in favor of something quite rich, refreshing and at last something that's absolutely memorable.

Largely the work of one, Lord Trowe as he plays all instruments (with the exception of a guest drum programmer & vocalist) and writes all the music, The Grand Contraction sees the project moving in a highly melodic and mostly instrumental direction. With the exception of the second song, 'Big Crunch,' which is a more black metal driven piece (and the only song with vocals), the remainder of the album is a entirely instrumental and the results are fantastic.

I can't say for sure but a lot of these songs sound as if they've been inspired by Agalloch as it reminds me of a lot of the instrumental parts found on their albums, 'The Mantle' & 'Ashes Against the Grain,' while other portions of this album give a kind nod to post rock music and of course portions of this album still retain the dark depressive doomy black style of the bands past, though certainly refined.

What really stands out is that the songs have varying tempos and moods and some songs tend to fully develop over the course of several minutes. I much enjoy the way some songs start out slowly with atmospheric synths or slow guitar work and gradually build up to epic territories or become chaotic with a blink of the eye just to return to calmer melodic sounds in the end. The mood often shifts between sounding hopelessly depressing to optimistic, dreamy, evil, threatening or to a more dark mysterious sort of sound which brings to mind some of Akira Yamaoka's work on the Silent Hill soundtracks, which I pick up on songs like, 'Silence' & 'Instrumental.'

Lord Trowe has obviously been practicing extensively since the last album because some of these riffs and solos are absolutely colossal in their delivery. In particular I just adore, 'The Collapse' since it has everything I mentioned above through out its six minute duration, while, 'Nobody' has a lot of what makes this album so grand too. It's all about melody and mood and this guy pulled it off flawlessly this time around. I'm fairly certain that once you hear this album you'll be enthralled with what you hear coming out of your speakers and you'll be playing these songs over and over again with such melodic and catchy riffs as well as the brilliant solos.

It surely will be interesting to see where this band goes from here especially if the compositions grow in length and they remain instrumental The Foetal Mind could very well be a huge name in the French metal scene in the near future. As for now I absolutely recommend checking this album and artist out and supporting this great record called, 'The Grand Contraction.'