ASPHYXIUM ZINE

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Full Length Review: Fuck the Facts "Pleine Noirceur" (Noise Salvation) by Dave Wolff

Band: Fuck the Facts
Location: Quebec
Country: Canada
Genre: Grindcore
Full length: Pleine Noirceur
Format: Digital, limited edition CD (two pressings), limited edition 12" white vinyl (1st pressing), limited edition 12" clear with smoke vinyl (2nd pressing)
Label: Noise Salvation (Canada)
Release date: November 20, 2020
From the late 90s to the early 2000s, I listened to Fuck The Facts a lot, so I was surprised to discover they’re still active after a practical legion of EPs, splits, and full-length albums. As far as I remember, they started as a typical grindcore band, but there was something progressive about them that became more apparent each time I listened to them. After a long, long period of not hearing anything new from them, "Pleine Noirceur" caught my attention.
Underground bands that remain active for years can undergo many changes, and grindcore bands can advance and attain maturity as much as any band. It’s clear Fuck the Facts haven’t been dormant when it comes to embellishing on their ideas all these years. Their love for grindcore’s unkempt, disorderly assaultiveness has kept up while they heightened components of the genre; a blast section here, a breakdown there; pushing them toward degrees of prolificity waiting to be cultivated while remaining planted in the rapid-fire whirlwinds where they originated.
There is that certain quality in the guitar, bass, and drum tracks, and the burnished production makes them heavier, without the blurriness that is characteristic of most grind, gore grind, and death grind. You can actually hear all the notes written into the more chaotic songs and those with more resourceful songwriting, with all-encompassing atmosphere, overlapping guitars, and overtones of industrial, doom, melodic death and prog overtones. Even the vocals get this treatment.
To present the extensive range this album careens through, you need the clean production you get here, and you receive the impression each new approach to their songwriting has its origins in a traditional grind. In many instances I didn’t expect a transformation this far-reaching in structure and musicianship, but at the rate they’re going, Fuck The Facts do for grindcore what Voivod did for thrash, Mastodon did for math metal, Orphaned Land did for oriental metal, and Blind Guardian did for power metal.
"Pleine Noirceur" demonstrates how much maturity and growth can only occur with experience and can't be achieved without a certain degree of foundation. And yes, the lyrics (in English and French) are included on their Bandcamp profile. –Dave Wolff

Lineup:
Mel Mongeon: Vocals, lyrics
Topon Das: Guitars, songwriting
Mathieu "Vil" Vilandré: Guitars, drums, songwriting

Track list:
1. Doubt, Fear, Neglect
2. Ailleurs
3. Pleine Noirceur
4. Aube
5. Sans Lumière
6. Sans Racines
7. Everything I Love Is Ending
8. A Dying Light
9. Dropping Like Flies
10. L'abandon
11. An Ending
12. _cide

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