Sorcier des Glaces / Ende – Le Puits des Morts

 The whole f**king concept, idea, shenanigans, etc. known as atmospheric black metal has always fascinated me in ways may other sub-genres of metal can’t. Mainly because how bands manage to flip between being more serene than a slow downfall of snow to being able to turn into a vicious blizzard in an instant. You get one great band of the style and you get something that can only be classified as stunning, but when you get two great bands together . . . holy f**king s**t! Ende has been the highlight of my black metal experience of the last year, and Sorcier des Glaces has been a definite close second. So seeing them come together for one massive, epic split is the closest thing to a dream come true for me. “Le Puits des Morts” is an absolutely superb display from these Canadian (Sorcier) and French (Ende) bands that fits together better than death on a corpse.

Imagine the perfect blend of massive f**king riffs alongside brilliantly created atmospheric and brutality that is equal parts vicious as it is haunting.

Eight tracks make up the split with each band getting four to demonstrate brand new material to show off, and in Ende’s case one track to show a new thing they’ve only just started doing: a track devoted completely for atmospheric purposes but composed exclusively of keyboards which, to my knowledge, is the first time Ende begun to use such tactics. But it works excellently well so no complaints from me! But everything else has such an awesome balance to it that truly any black metal fan can get into so long as they’re not elitist scumbags, but we won’t get into that mess.

It’s Sorcier des Glaces that brings the superior atmosphere and it’s Ende that bring the fresh, sick riffs that one can only dream of, but they both bring a marvelous black metal sound to the point where I can’t help but say it’s criminal that these gentlemen aren’t more well known. “Le Puits des Morts” has so much character about it and so many goddamned layers, flips, turns, upside downs, and pizzazz that I’d be lying to you if I said this wasn’t one of the most exciting and entertaining black metal album of 2016 to me.

It’s going to be hard to beat this as Sorcier and Ende have set the f**king bar for splits everywhere for not just black metal, but metal in general as this is a duo made for great things, and it’ll be great to see where these bands will take their music later in the future. Keep your eyes peeled folks for Ende is finishing up a new full length album that is coming “soon”, and Sorcier has recently released an album this year, “North”, but that doesn’t mean they will sit down for long, and we can expect nothing short of excellence as always.

“Le Puits des Morts” releases on September 20th!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_xoO7XdcCw

Track Listing:

1. Sorcier des Glaces – Le Puits des Morts
2. Sorcier des Glaces – Glaciale Solitude… Dans la Pénombre Hivernale
3. Sorcier des Glaces – Dans L’immensité Blanche de la Plaine
4. Sorcier des Glaces – L’ombre Squellettique du Temps
5. Ende – Notre Falaise
6. Ende – Sacrifice
7. Ende – Call From the Grave (Bathory cover)
8. Ende – Fehér Isten