�� Taking their name from the French word for "nightmare", this fantastic French-Canadian band first began to haunt my ears with their five song EP La Vierge Noire that came out back in 2010. That slab of spectral doom-tinged metal was fronted by the ghostly vocals of front-woman Annick Giroux, who some of you might recognize as the author of the heavy metal-centric cookbook Hellbent For Cooking that came out a while back. On their debut EP, Cauchemar suggested an intoxicating mixture of classic traditional doom metal and ancient speed metal, cloaking their sound in a cold, ethereal quality that gave you the feeling that you were listening to something drifting in from some distant graveyard or disinterred crypt, with Giroux's moaning, reverb-drenched delivery and French language lyrics adding an additional layer of opaqueness and mystery to Cauchemar's sound. At the same time, these guys benefited from not sounding like all of the legions of other female-fronted "occult" metal bands that have sprung up over the past few years; this stuff comes from a different place than the 70's era progginess that you'll find in bands like Blood Ceremony or The Devils Blood, although fans of that stuff would probably love Cauchemar's music. Instead, this has more of that dank subterranean vibe found in the recordings of cult Italian bands like Death SS, and the more doom-laden sounds of the NWOBHM that were being perpetrated by Witchfinder General and Pagan Altar. That EP had an undeniable charm in spite of all of its rawness, but with their new full-length album Tenebrario, Cauchemar deliver a stronger set of songs with a more focused sound, which only enhances their quirky mixture of haunting female singing, occult imagery, atavistic speed metal and cavernous doom. The whole sound of the album has a distinctly early 80's vintage, even down to some of the choices regarding the production and all of it's reverb-drenched ambience and stripped-down mix. Tenebrario doesn't sound self-consciously retro, though. Songs like "Le Feu Du Soleil", "Tete De Mort" and the crushing "Trois Mondes" (the latter of which carries some echoes of Sabbath's "Snowblind" and mixes in some wonderfully creepy pipe organ into the mix) are weighted with crushing Sabbathian doom riffs, while the likes of "Salamandre" and "Rites Lunaires" whip out some killer chugging speed-metal riffs and propulsive tempos. The song "Le Fantome" is my favorite of the album, a dark and catchy galloping anthem that has some cool dissonant guitar work and wicked riffing woven around the song's ghostly Gallic feel, dropping off into some sinister churning doom layered with eerie choral ambience towards the end. And the closing title track combines chimes, acoustic guitar into an elliptical, evocative number that has an almost Goblin-like feel, making for a perfect close to the album. One of my favorite NWW releases this year thus far.