In a career spanning more than a decade French five-piece Fall of Messiah has traversed its fair share of genres. On release number five it shows no sign of standing still and with a warm, vibrant recording Senicarne covers post-rock, post-hardcore and screamo with complete aplomb. The old adage of “jack of all trades, master of none” is quickly dismantled here as Fall of Messiah shows that it can master any genre it turns its hand to.
The varied back catalogue started off with chaotic and math influenced hardcore, but the sound seems to have found a real base since third release How To See Beyond Fields. Lead singles on Senicarne, ‘Contreforts’ and ‘Young Pines’, may give a slightly false impression of the album as they fall more towards the screamo side of things. In both tracks there are large swathes of beautiful instrumentation, drums that massage as well as pound and vocals which push the crescendos to a darker level. All of that is true for the rest of the album but there is far more of a lean to a heavy instrumental post-rock in a similar vein of the first Show Me A Dinosaur album.
Even the instrumental songs such as opener ‘La République Du Vide’ or ‘Riveloup’ can’t be classed as just post-rock as they have an edge which vocals would certainly elevate deeper into post-hardcore or screamo. The only point that really falls into post or math rock is ‘Atlantique’, but even here, like all dangerous stretches of water there are swells that drag you in.
The moments of real exploration come towards the end of the album where ‘Sand Mountain’ stumbles into the post-black metal of ‘Sequoia’. Here the comparison with Show Me A Dinosaur really bonds as the music pummels before rising and rising again. This is followed by album stand out ‘The Loneliest Whale In The World’, which packages everything the band has touched on and builds to an absolutely hammering ending, I am a sucker for an epic album closer and this is one of the best.
This is the crux of what makes this album a success, here is a sound the band hasn’t touched before in previous releases, but it is integrated seamlessly whilst still having the aesthetics of the rest of the album. Fall of Messiah has created a beautifully textured album with some absolutely crushing crescendos, vocal and instrumental and in the end the balance is absolutely spot on, Vive la France.
