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Demians: Building an empire

16/12/10 || Altmer

La France. Country of cheese, wine, et gastronomie. Not known for ze Metal Greatness, apart from froggers du monde Gojira, zey are a bit of an unknown quantity in le metal scène. It is said zat ze French prefer producing uzzer things zan heavy metal, ou maybe uzzer musical genres. Isn’t rap popular in France, with the foreign invasion that has taken place there? Anyhow. Back to metal, or, what I would more accurately call, a blend of metal and quite a few other things. Namely, zis French outfit named Demians.

Demians are a one man band on CD, but use session musicians for live shows. Le one man is Nicolas Chapel. He is a cool frood, a nice guy, and a very quiet man as far as I can tell. He needs his solitude and henceforth recorded this album all by himself. I would not be mistaken if this was a basement somewhere in France. Usually those people make black metal, but since this is nerdier rather than aggressive it doesn’t sound like that whatsoever.

This begs the question: what does this sound like? Porcupine Tree is one easy reference to make. The guitar riffs are very “Deadwing”-esque and remind me of “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here” (nor in France, I should add). In fact, it’s pretty much progressive metal with a lot of electronic/ambient touches that make it feel really fresh and not like a retread of what has been done before here. In fact, it’s that what attracts me to the album – it feels like he’s combining all of my favourite things into one juicy package.

There’s a few downsides to that as well – this is his debut album. Some of the songs could benefit from some trimming or outside ideas. He’s got his shit down, playing-wise, but what Chapel needs is a bit of an objective view. The closer “Sand” is a brilliant song, but it’s so long at sixteen minutes that you think there may be a way of cutting it a little bit short. I’ve heard that the new album, “Mute”, was recorded similarly somewhere in Normandy though. Maybe he just really needs peace and quiet to work on his masterpieces. Whatever, it does feel like he’s run out of ideas by the end and the album could use some editing.

However, the execution of all things here is splendid. The album sounds fantastic, the guitars have a nice crunch to them, the electronic elements are extremely lush, and Chapel has the perfect voice for his album – a quiet, crooning voice. Much like Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame, he’s got the ability to sing well without overdoing it or being theatrical. It completely robs the album of needless pretense and makes the whole ambitious platter more digestible. He knows what musical taste entails. There’s no noodling or wanking. Just bits and pieces that are too long or don’t work.

For a debut album and a one man job, this 2008 record is an extremely impressive release. I saw them do their first show outside of France – poor band were nervous as hell. They got much better on the Anathema tour, that’s for sure. I still have to pick up their new album, which I shall do soon on the strength of this record.

Recommendation: Revise some of the sections in longer songs. They could be cut to be more effective.

7,5

Information
Released: 2008
Label: Inside Out
Website: Demians MySpace
Band
Nicolas Chapel: everything

Tracklist
01. The Perfect Symmetry
02. Shine
03. Sapphire
04. Naive
05. Unspoken
06. Temple
07. Empire
08. Sand
09. Earth

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