Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor | Through the Shattered Lens

Decade of last.fm scrobbling countdown:
44. Peste Noire (721 plays)
Top track (65 plays): Ballade cuntre les anemis de la France, from Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor (2009)

Peste Noire is probably the most French thing to ever happen to metal. Famine has frankly stated, if the interview excerpts I saw were properly translated, that he intentionally aims to make his music as terrible and possible. This is something quite successfully achieved in the nearly unlistenable L’Ordure à l’état Pur, released two years ago. That album seems to me a big “fuck you” to everyone who failed to give Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor an abysmal rating on Encyclopaedia Metallum. Its unprecedented levels of tastelessness successfully mock modern consumerism through an acute awareness of that about popular culture which inclines us to lose all faith in humanity. (Famine even traded in his traditional black metal/skinhead garb for a nu metal image in the packaging.) Maybe Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor, released in 2009, was intended to be a parody too, but in that instance Famine let his actually incredible song-writing abilities and aesthetic awareness get in the way of producing anything which can honestly be regarded as terrible. I am rather inclined to call it one of my favorite albums of all time.

One of the most interesting people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing was a highly educated skinhead obsessed with extremely racist, nationalistic bands in the punk/skinhead/RAC sphere. He didn’t share any of their ideologies in the slightest, but he was able to set aside disgust in what they stood for and tap into the sort of raw emotion that drove average working-class individuals to proclaim such extreme views. Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor might be said to mock this sort of music by maintaining the emotional appeal while deflating the fictionalized history typically necessary for its evocation. It embraces French nationalism as a parody, presumably. At least, it presents a raw, ugly image of the past that hardly meets the standard conditions for pride or beauty. Yet Famine’s vulgar vocals and lo-fi, distorted, “black and roll” instrumentation come coupled with an intense feeling of nostalgia that persists throughout the album. The parody, if it can be called a parody, stems from the presentation of nostalgia for something grotesque, but towards this end Famine committed his artistic talents without restraint. It is a nostalgic ode to a sick, sinister past, juxtaposing musical representations of unjustifiable violence and intolerance to a feeling of warmth and comfort. On the one hand it is deliciously dark, and on the other it is a legitimate embrace of nationalism in its most honest clothes. Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor is an album that has always fucked with my head, and I love it dearly.

“The verb troll originates from Old French troller, a hunting term.” I kind of want to end right there. But I’ve read reviews of 2009’s Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor, one of my favorite albums ever, that basically accused Famine of making something intentionally horrible. To just say no, Ballade was a work of genius, L’Odure is their intentionally horrible album, without any justification, would be a bit naive.

I don’t think I can really say what I want to say about L’Ordure without taking a good look at Ballade though, so let me start with the opening song of their 2009 album.

La Mesniee Mordrissoire (on Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor)

Following a short introduction track, La Mesniee Mordrissoire kicks off perhaps the most dark and disturbing album I’ve ever heard. Famine’s infamously twisted vocals, the peculiar, unnatural way in which the album is distorted, the unity of all of its seemingly random features, the cackles, the ultra-nationalistic chants, the contrast of all this to riffs and beats that are sometimes happy, sometimes longing in an entirely human sort of way, everything about this album is warped beyond belief. And it just gets “better”. I wish I was a psychopath just so I could have the fulfillment of jabbing my victims with a red-hot poker while dancing to track 3. … Ok well, anyway…

I refuse to believe that this album was a fluke. I refuse to believe that Famine’s real intention was to create something really awful and he just by accident shit out a masterpiece. Sure, it might have vastly exceeded his expectations–works of this caliber often surpass their creators–but it was not a complete accident.

At the same time, a lot of what you hear on Ballade couldn’t have been recorded with a straight face by a normal person, and I have no reason to believe Famine isn’t one. I for one don’t think I could chant “sieg heil! sieg heil!” or sing a chorus of “la la la la lala” without busting out laughing regardless of how well it fit my artistic vision. I typically see Famine being accused of immaturity, not of being a radical, but I fail to see why he couldn’t have taken the album seriously and still gotten a kick out of the elements of it which, when taken out of context, are completely ridiculous.

When I say L’Ordure à l’état Pur, translated to something like Garbage in its Pure Form, is horrible, I’m saying that I think Famine intended it to be horrible. I think it has next to nothing conceptually in common with its predecessor. It’s like he’s saying “No, this is immature. Do you see the difference?”

L’Ordure à l’état Pur came packaged with an image change for the band that might clarify the difference.

Cochon Carotte Et Les sœurs Crotte

This is the only song I’m going to sample from L’Ordure à l’état Pur, because I think it’s all you really need to hear to decide whether you want to pick up the whole thing or not. If you can appreciate sound samples from scat pornography, belching noises substituted for drum beats, Famine doing his best impression of an irritated chicken, and really bad techno, maybe this album is for you. Hell, maybe you can kid yourself into thinking the band is making some statement about society. But for me, Famine is just trolling here. Maybe he wanted people to derive some sort of meaning from it all, or maybe he just wanted to sit back and laugh at all the people who try to. I think I’ll not risk falling victim to the latter.

L’Ordure à l’état Pur has a few really great features, but by and large it’s awful. Take the album title literally. You might think there is meaning buried beneath the joke, but that is the joke.