Review by Nathan on February 8, 2022.

A new project proclaimed as a synthesis of DSBM aesthetics and angelic female cleans, this new French group taps into the same ethereal realms as the legendary Alcest. As someone who dorked out hard on their first three albums in the early 2010s (and pretty much anything else Neige was involved with), I'm thrilled - Alcest themselves have ventured into a lighter, more shoegazey direction now, which I vibe with less, and I didn't even realize how much I was craving some new music in that beautiful space where melancholic black metal and bombastic post-rock collide.

That being said, writing this off as an Alcest clone would not only be a disservice to Les Retranchement, but also terribly inaccurate. Despite the "DSBM" attributes mentioned in the promotional blurb, the only real trope of that genre you hear is the shrieked harsh vocals. The heavier riffs have modern influences, though interestingly enough they don't seem to take as much influence from the French scene - I hear more influences along the lines of Mgla and Agrypnie than anything. In addition, there's an undercurrent of melodic death/doom in the writing - the band likes to linger at a middling pace, and when the clean vocals are prominent, there's a careful marching feel reminiscent of Swallow The Sun. That is but an occasional spice, as this has far too many blastbeats to be considered a "doom" album in any respect. There's a handful of different styles being given a tip of the hat on this, and it might seem stilted and disparate if the phenomenal vocal performance didn't tie everything together.

The shrieks are evocative, like Ghost Bath with a hint more grit, but they're not even the star of the show. The clean vocals are absolutely captivating, and have a powerful cadence to them that is one of a kind. Though incredibly rich and vibrant, they have this stark, dry delivery that gives the impression they are being sung by someone who is dead. Not in a wailing banshee sort of way, it's more like an enlightened soul that had a tragic passing and wanders haunted halls, beckoning those who wander by with an irresistible siren call. They're not tormented - they're at peace with leaving their body, even happy. They are so beautiful it's fucking scary.

Silhouette obviously realized that they needed to use that voice as much as possible, but also that there needed to be a balance. Too much candy ruins a good meal, so to get around this, the band had the brilliant idea of using the visceral weight of black metal as climaxes for the stretches of delicate, lush majesty. We're one month into 2022 and I might have already stumbled on my debut album of the year,

Rating: 8.7 out of 10

Review by Fran on April 2, 2025.

Well, looks like this is something vile that has crept out of a slimy ditch situated in some radioactive wasteland out there, and even worse, it has recorded an album that sounds equally as diseased, filthy and depraved as that what it has crawled out of. Looks like it's time to pull the emergency contamination plan out of the cupboard, because we're going in to see what this vile plague is all about.

Fulminate is the brainchild of a guy only referred to as 'M', and I seriously doubt that it's the same one who is James Bond's boss. After pressing the play button on my stereo, this so-called 'M' immediately regurgitates a vile mixture of death-splattered, gore-infested grind all over my clean floor. Musically, we're looking at a sickening collision between bands such as Last Days of Humanity, Regurgitate, and Inhume (especially their debut), where low chainsaw guitars, bulging bass, and battering percussion slam into a distortion-drenched head-on collision of grime and gore, poured into short-but-sharp tracks that combine psychotic velocity with Mortician-like heaviness. Once you've become accustomed to the grinding barrage of seething aggression and barbaric pounding at play, it will dawn on you that that gurgling sound you've been hearing throughout actually isn't your shower drain clogging up, but the vocals of 'M', bubbling, squelching and oozing their way through this putrid slice of goregrind delight.

The production pretty much follows suit in all of this, keeping everything sounding vile and rotten, while at the same time being surprisingly well-balanced too. All the instrumentation is clearly distinguishable while sounding heavy and crisp, and it does this without sacrificing any force or grit. Aggression and heaviness go hand in hand, reaping oodles of benefit from the gritty yet powerful production, making this album land like a brick in the face.

Yeah, this is one of those platters ranking high on the filth-scale, and let me just put it out there right now, I can totally dig this. Agreed, this type of stuff doesn't need much to become one long song, and I can also see that the over-the-top vocals can get tiresome to those who aren't into this, but again, I can dig this! It's heavy, it oozes aggressive vibes and the whole thing simply heaves with a degenerate, utterly vile atmosphere, if you're into raw grinding death metal-isms, this one is sure to please those unnatural hankerings for gore-flecked metal that you might have.

In conclusion, as I see it, there's no containing this health hazard anytime soon. We're just going to have to learn to live with it, I'm afraid.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Fran on April 2, 2025.

Well, looks like this is something vile that has crept out of a slimy ditch situated in some radioactive wasteland out there, and even worse, it has recorded an album that sounds equally as diseased, filthy and depraved as that what it has crawled out of. Looks like it's time to pull the emergency contamination plan out of the cupboard, because we're going in to see what this vile plague is all about.

Fulminate is the brainchild of a guy only referred to as 'M', and I seriously doubt that it's the same one who is James Bond's boss. After pressing the play button on my stereo, this so-called 'M' immediately regurgitates a vile mixture of death-splattered, gore-infested grind all over my clean floor. Musically, we're looking at a sickening collision between bands such as Last Days of Humanity, Regurgitate, and Inhume (especially their debut), where low chainsaw guitars, bulging bass, and battering percussion slam into a distortion-drenched head-on collision of grime and gore, poured into short-but-sharp tracks that combine psychotic velocity with Mortician-like heaviness. Once you've become accustomed to the grinding barrage of seething aggression and barbaric pounding at play, it will dawn on you that that gurgling sound you've been hearing throughout actually isn't your shower drain clogging up, but the vocals of 'M', bubbling, squelching and oozing their way through this putrid slice of goregrind delight.

The production pretty much follows suit in all of this, keeping everything sounding vile and rotten, while at the same time being surprisingly well-balanced too. All the instrumentation is clearly distinguishable while sounding heavy and crisp, and it does this without sacrificing any force or grit. Aggression and heaviness go hand in hand, reaping oodles of benefit from the gritty yet powerful production, making this album land like a brick in the face.

Yeah, this is one of those platters ranking high on the filth-scale, and let me just put it out there right now, I can totally dig this. Agreed, this type of stuff doesn't need much to become one long song, and I can also see that the over-the-top vocals can get tiresome to those who aren't into this, but again, I can dig this! It's heavy, it oozes aggressive vibes and the whole thing simply heaves with a degenerate, utterly vile atmosphere, if you're into raw grinding death metal-isms, this one is sure to please those unnatural hankerings for gore-flecked metal that you might have.

In conclusion, as I see it, there's no containing this health hazard anytime soon. We're just going to have to learn to live with it, I'm afraid.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Fran on April 2, 2025.

Well, looks like this is something vile that has crept out of a slimy ditch situated in some radioactive wasteland out there, and even worse, it has recorded an album that sounds equally as diseased, filthy and depraved as that what it has crawled out of. Looks like it's time to pull the emergency contamination plan out of the cupboard, because we're going in to see what this vile plague is all about.

Fulminate is the brainchild of a guy only referred to as 'M', and I seriously doubt that it's the same one who is James Bond's boss. After pressing the play button on my stereo, this so-called 'M' immediately regurgitates a vile mixture of death-splattered, gore-infested grind all over my clean floor. Musically, we're looking at a sickening collision between bands such as Last Days of Humanity, Regurgitate, and Inhume (especially their debut), where low chainsaw guitars, bulging bass, and battering percussion slam into a distortion-drenched head-on collision of grime and gore, poured into short-but-sharp tracks that combine psychotic velocity with Mortician-like heaviness. Once you've become accustomed to the grinding barrage of seething aggression and barbaric pounding at play, it will dawn on you that that gurgling sound you've been hearing throughout actually isn't your shower drain clogging up, but the vocals of 'M', bubbling, squelching and oozing their way through this putrid slice of goregrind delight.

The production pretty much follows suit in all of this, keeping everything sounding vile and rotten, while at the same time being surprisingly well-balanced too. All the instrumentation is clearly distinguishable while sounding heavy and crisp, and it does this without sacrificing any force or grit. Aggression and heaviness go hand in hand, reaping oodles of benefit from the gritty yet powerful production, making this album land like a brick in the face.

Yeah, this is one of those platters ranking high on the filth-scale, and let me just put it out there right now, I can totally dig this. Agreed, this type of stuff doesn't need much to become one long song, and I can also see that the over-the-top vocals can get tiresome to those who aren't into this, but again, I can dig this! It's heavy, it oozes aggressive vibes and the whole thing simply heaves with a degenerate, utterly vile atmosphere, if you're into raw grinding death metal-isms, this one is sure to please those unnatural hankerings for gore-flecked metal that you might have.

In conclusion, as I see it, there's no containing this health hazard anytime soon. We're just going to have to learn to live with it, I'm afraid.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Tomek on February 17, 2016.

Being a fan of death/thrash metal (between many different genres), I’m always on the lookout for something new. It can be a band, it can be an album or sometimes it can be just a song, but it’s the “fresh” I’m after. Nahum just came to me from Czech Republic and what it represents fits all the categories I mentioned above.

Album starts with a whistling sound of a bomb coming down, and once the music explodes in the speakers - there’s no turning back. Those guys don’t wait for nothing and nobody and they’re going rabid right off the bet. Thrashing death metal would probably be somewhat close to explaining what is going on, but Nahum are not being shy here and they take handfuls from both genres. And The Chaos Has Begun (which is the name of the album) is filled with remarkably aggressive guitar work, combined with high speed ferocious rumble of the drums and fat clings of the bass to be joined by vocals ranging from raspy screams to low and intensely guttural discharge that reminds me of Johnny from Unleashed at times. Nahum’s riffing hooks insert themselves deeply into ones attention span demanding full attentiveness and are bound to keep you thrashing around, head banging viciously and quite possibly finishing the evening with the horn throwing, fist pumping frenzy.

Nahum created an album that is not only packed with mass of energy they also didn’t skip on any other elements. Cover painting by Daniela ‘Dahlien’ Neumanova screams originality and passion, lyrics are written with an idea of apocalyptic chaos waiting for humanity right around the corner and mastering and production is top notch. Everything premeditated and executed flawlessly.

Nahum’s And The Chaos Has Begun entered the list of my favorite albums of late and if you’re into death/thrash I’d like to strongly recommend giving it a shot, you’ll like it. Nahum came out with an album filled with great songs and here is what I rediscovered about metal from Czech Republic….IT KICKS ASS!!

Rating: 9 out of 10