����� Now available as a gorgeously packaged LP (on black vinyl, limited to four hundred copies) and back in stock on both digipak CD and cassette, all with super-striking metallic silver foil stamped lettering, beautiful snow-capped landscapes and natural ice sculptures, the lyrics and liner notes all printed only in French...

����� An expression of jet-black will, caught in the blinding whiteness of a Quebec blizzard. Long awaited new album of French Canadian black metal from the mighty Akitsa, the first new release from the band since the split with Ash Pool and first actual full-length since 2010's Au Cr�puscule De L'Esp�rance. I've been eagerly looking forward to this one; when it comes to frigid, uncompromising black metal, nobody beats Akitsa. And on Grands Tyrans, this Montreal band lacerates the listener with a nine-song blast of treble-shredded, violently impassioned music and poetic imagery that continues to traverse the twisted intersection of atavistic black metal, harsh noise, and punk primitivism. Since early on, this mysterious outfit has flirted with aspects of industrial music, unsurprising considering that the main player behind Akitsa has also been producing harsh experimental noise under the name �mes Sanglantes since the late 90s. At the same time, Akitsa's music is resolutely black metal, capturing the feral energy of the rawest second wave filth.

����� Fearsome opener "D�voil�" feints with languidly strummed guitar chords, but then erupts into one of the band's trademark droning riffs, a simple, three-chord figure repeated like a mantra over a monotonous blastbeat, transforming into a trancelike blur of high-end tremolo buzz and repetitious blast that stretches out beneath the hysterical, high-pitched screams for several minutes. But when it does finally change, it's subtly dramatic, shifting into a slightly different but vastly prettier version of that central riff, transforming the song into something strangely emotional and moving. That sort of nuanced blackened aggression alternates with barbaric punk anthems like "Le feu de l'ab�me", stomping scum-encrusted hardcore, attitudinal French-language vocals drawled over the brittle, violent chug of the guitars, draped in eerie blackened leads and layers of filthy fuzz. Other songs fall somewhere in between these two approaches, blending icy, frantic mid-paced black metal with droning, punk-informed riffs, the drumming a mix of slower, loping tempos and that furious hypnotic blast, and more of those eerie, simple guitar leads abound. They throw in some left turns, like the primitive synth of "Les flots de l'enfer" where a murky, melancholy keyboard melody emerges amid swells of throbbing electronics and gritty static, spoken word lyrics recited in the background, resembling a cross between some ancient darkwave outfit and the vintage 90's dungeon synth sound of Mortiis. The title track, though, steals the show. When this morbid dirge kicks in alongside a great gothy keyboard line, the vocals suddenly shift into a weird croon and the whole thing suddenly turns into this savage, saturated take on early 80s death rock, strafed with blistering blackened guitars and shrouded in an atmosphere of frostbitten misanthropy. When all is said and done, Grand Tyrans emerges as Akitsa's most musically and emotionally complex album thus far.