County: France
Genre: Occult black metal
EP: Nuit Noire
Format: CD digipack, digital EP
Label: Bitume Prods
Release date: December 21, 2025
Adunakhor Z., a French vocalist/instrumentalist, has been involved in a number of solo projects since 2006, including Thy Apokalypse, Abfall, Reflecting the Light, Kaamosmasennus, Eternité du Chaos, and Salaman Isku, where he typically lends lead vocals and multiple instruments to create the appropriate atmosphere. This December, he'll be revealing his freshman release for Arbe-Dieu, quite possibly his most extreme vision to date.
Arbe-Dieu is named after a card drawn from the Tarot of Marseille, a deck of cards created in northern Italy in the early fifteenth century, brought to France and Switzerland, and still produced today. This deck's creation also gave rise to the esoteric practice of Tarot readings. The Maison-Dieu card, The Tower, (loosely) represents a startling disruptive revelation and possibly catastrophic transformation that leads to new beginnings, self-discovery, and greater learning.
Adunakhor Z's debut effort for Arbe-Dieu, “Nuit Noire,” is a subjective voyage through this disruptive transformation, making its presence known unexpectedly and without warning and unleashing a full-fledged attack on your senses. Going beyond raw black metal and in the opposite direction of virtuosity and grandiosity, it dives into a primordial, almost animalistic realm pulsating with occult ritualism, carefully planned to reach the core source of mortal uneasiness, dread, and final terror.
To describe this EP as furious and tumultuous is an understatement. As a means of communicating a narrative of violent upheaval and eventual rebirth, they appear to be born of chaos and disorder, radiating chaos and disorder from their moment of conception. Despite the intensity poured through the almost impossibly expedient blast and tremolo picking, a ritualized, ceremonial perception cuts through the bedlam, pulling everything together to communicate a purpose of tearing down and rebuilding again. I read Adunakhor Z. worked on this for three years, which suggests careful planning was made to create the appropriate ambiance.
Considering the musicianship and strong distortion, the material is remarkably clear and gives plenty of intricacies. “Graines De La Folie” begins with a steady, mesmeric industrial vibe, as if setting a tone for the bleak, repetitive emotion that follows, with bass pushing the material from behind and beneath the guitars. The track that follows, “Tourbillon Chaotique,” contains so much blast and so much bottom holding the musicianship up it assume a distinct industrial vibe all its own.
From the Immortal/Burzum-esque triplet feel of “La Vieille Femme Et Le Soleil Pâle” to the slower-paced theme of “Mort Et Renaissance,” there's something about “Nuit Noire” that becomes more concrete and orderly, as if fresh wisdom is emerging from the destruction established before. I can envision what this EP would be like if it was recorded a full-length album, and I can't help but wonder where Adunakhor Z. will go with it. –Dave Wolff
Track list:
1. Graines De La Folie
2. Tourbillon Chaotique
3. La Vieille Femme Et Le Soleil Pâle
4. Mort Et Renaissance’.
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