Album Review : Fuck the Facts - Pleine Noirceur (2020)
Listen to Pleine Noirceur here
No one ever starts a grindcore band to become famous. It is a volatile, chaotic scene driven by passionate artists who sometimes struggle with the musical part of being in a band. It is catharsis as much as it is art. The music is straightforward and the bands are self-combustible. Most bands. Canadian outfit Fuck the Facts have been in the game for two decades, but they evolved from pure grind a long-ass time ago and they kind of do their own thing now.
They also don’t struggle with the musical part of being in a band. At all. Pleine Noirceur is them at their most sophisticated, original and fucking fearless.
If you’re expecting a grindcore record going into Pleine Noirceur, you’re going to be very confused. There are more straightforward microsongs like Ailleurs or Sans Racines, but even these are overflowing with different ideas. You do hear the grindcore, but it comes and goes like the flow of a river. These are so many things going on: black metal, powerviolence, alternative rock and even hints of shoegaze. Pleine Noirceur is subtle and complex like a fine wine.
I preferred the longer songs, like Doubt, Fear Neglect and Everything I Love is Ending because they’re multifaceted without being showy. Mastermind Topon Das uses his sonic craftsmanship to enhance the story being told. He sets up moods and atmospheres his frontwoman (and, I believe, wife) Mel Mongeon to shriek her inner darkness to. The title song is another good example, constantly alternating between driven anger and swirling sadness.
By the way, if you haven’t heard Mel Mongeon shriek, it is quite unique and unforgettable. She’s got this high-pitched, raspy and extremely consistent tone. Even when they perform live, she sounds the same. While some might bemoan the monochord delivery, I think it’s awesome. It gives Pleine Noirceur a strong identity amidst the shifty, unfathomable instrumentation. The entire album is structure around these ghastly, pained shrills.
Another song I liked was Dropping Like Flies, which had the crushing power of some Codex Necro era Anaal Nathrakh. I don’t think it is a coincidence. They are both bands who love to innovate and blend genres. A Dying Light was another highlight. It’s a doomier, more reflexive track on the violence of endings. I don’t have much negative criticism except maybe that L’abandon was kind of weird and that I would’ve loved moodier, bulkier songs?
I know microsongs are a staple of grindcore, but it not what Fuck the Facts does anymore. Topon, Mel, Vil and the others have found a sonic landscape that is entirely theirs. I know of nothing else that sounds like Pleine Noirceur. It’s something new and exciting.
I cannot tell you how liberating it feels to listen to a record like Pleine Noirceur, guys. Fuck the Facts are a band that doesn’t give a fuck about boundaries and yet they give a fuck about our ears. This is not some sort of weird, iconoclast hybrid. It works and it works extremely well. To be completely transparent, Pleine Noirceur came out on the day my dog Scarlett died and it was pure catharsis to my negative emotions. A monument to pain and inner darkness.
8.5/10
