came [seventh] and lost the job - 49%
(Unfortunately, I don't know what this means .. lost the job)
Let's start with a nonsensical little conspiracy theory thingy. I have a feeling that after the release of Peste Noire's debut album, La Sanie des siècles, Famine decided to celebrate it. And celebrate he did, and thoroughly so, so thoroughly in fact, that the big fat inspiration came to him and inspired him to write the next album, Folkfuck folie, the morning after. I mean, why else would it be such a hangover after the masterful Sanie and sound like one as well? And then, some time later, between the summer of 2007 and the fall of 2008, a terrible accident happened - a barrel of eau-de-vie (read: moonshine) fell on the shiny chrome dome that Famine seems to always carry on his noggin. But you can't drink your glass away, and neither could Famine, instead pouring it drop by drop into some usually pretty good and always pretty whimsical music - or, as it were, ungodly noise, if you're not into that kind of thing. Oh well, I don't blame you if you aren't.
(It's pretty difficult to follow the train of thought. It veers into a truly confusing metaphor at the end. What are you trying to say here, without any metaphor at all?)
And now, four albums, countless drops and almost 10 years down the drain, the inspiration is almost gone. Why almost? Well, as evident by the fact Famine signed to the Ukrainian label Militant Zone and shot the music video for "Le dernier putsch" in Kiev, he switched from the good old eau-de-vie to the not-so-good old Ukrainian beer. Well, why, even beer can inspire the guts out of you, especially in large amounts and/or combined with something a little stronger. And Ukrainian beer is, to say the least, hard to consume without large amounts of something a lot stronger. And it shows, since the music here is still characteristically Peste Noire and there are a few moments here that recall Famine and company's previous works - at least on the traditional part.
(I'm just not clear on what's going on in the beer metaphor. Also, what kind of music is this? Two paragraphs in and we still aren't sure.)
That's right, the traditional part. See, this album is, by concept, supposed to be a split between the Famine we all know and love (or don't know and don't love, your choice) and the same old Famine cosplaying some chain- (no, I'm talking about a different kind of chain) and blackface-wearing, in Famine's own terms, degenerate, with the "traditional part" on the A-side and the "degenerate part" on the B-side. And although it doesn't come first, I'd like to gloss over the degenerate part now, since bad news are supposed to delivered first. So, let's drink to the birth of a new genre - French NS horror blackened trap! Well, "new"... there isn't really that much new about it, you know, or interesting, for that matter. It's just Famine spewing bile in his trademark "goblin gangster on his period" manner over some frankly anemic and plodding grooves (that aren't really groovy, no less), sometimes sampled and other times "played" on the good ol' TR-808. It's just... no. I may not be the biggest fan of hip hop, but the fact Peste Noire, a band I like a lot, ventured into the realms of bars and beats actually got me excited, especially given that I like "Le dernier putsch" and the ending of "Dans ma nuit", where Famine experimented with rapping, but this excitement lasted precisely until I heard the teaser single "Aristocrasse". It doesn't suck enough to be actively bad, but I doubt it's really worth your while if you don't speak French, aren't really into rap, and don't endorse the NS ideology. See how the last two things amusingly contradict each other - I feel like this "degenerate part" a troll move from Famine, but flippancy should be backed up by some music that either kicks at least seven asses or sucks at least seven blue whale penises, not used as an excuse to be mediocre. Here's hoping Famine succeeded in taking the piss out of his Nazi comrades, but hip hop isn't all like that, while this trash can't even pass for a good experiment for reasons already described above. And the brutal butchery of "Des médecins malades" is nothing if not unforgivable, approaching Russian rap in terms of both music and awfulness. Oh well, at least "Turbofascisme" sort of made me nod my head a little bit.
("I doubt it's really worth your while if you don't speak French, aren't really into rap, and don't endorse the NS ideology"
Well there goes any likelihood of me listening to this..
It's hard to follow what you're saying because it takes a long time for you to get to it. Preamble isn't all that interesting unless you tell one story in order to lead to another, and the two somehow connect. If you aren't doing that, just get to the point: The split isn't between two bands, but one band doing two kinds of music. Think of the simplest way to say what you mean, and then figure out clear ways to add any thoughts you want to be sure you cover. Sentences can basically handle one idea, at most two. Qualifications to the main ideas have to be short, or else it's really easy for readers to get lost. If you were saying all this out loud, I'd probably be able to keep up. The focus is too swingy and the sentences are trying to cover too much ground.)
Now onto the traditional part, and it doesn't save the day either. It's supposed to be some sort of a return to the roots - no connection to the Roots as in the great hip hop group, or the Czech dark metallers Root, although I'd rather listen to and recommend both of those bands over this - but although it's the "blackest" Peste Noire has ever been, the roots it returns to seem to be rotten, and so the result ends up sharing more than a few things in common with the aforementioned Folkfuck folie. It's also predominantly fast and aggressive, manages to come across as monotonous, unremarkable and tiring, and has a majorly annoying production. But while Folie was noisy and chaotic, and its production ground my gears because of how noisy, buzzy and tinny it was, and not in a typical raw black metal sense, more like some old punk recording, the production here does the same by being overly polished and tinny, and the chaos present on Folie, and all other Peste Noire recordings for that matter, is absent, with careful consideration taking its place, so much so that even the rare "wacky" moments sound predictable and like they're supposed to be there. And isn't that a mortal sin for a band like KPN?
(Better. Compare this to the paragraph above it, and you'll see a big difference in clarity.)
On the other hand, at least there still are some moments here that can be called good without . Hell, "Songe viking" and "Raid éclair" are actually pretty nice if I abstain from comparisons. The former has a pretty nice clean-sung bit towards the end, and the latter features a little of Peste Noire's characteristic oddness and Alexei from M8L8TH, also the head of Militant Zone, "singing" his lines probably better than he does in his main band. Accordingly, the riffs in those tracks are the best on the album, even though they're played in that same old dissonant-yet-melodic arpeggiated manner, the guitar tone reminds me of mosquitoes more than ever, and the first riff of "Raid éclair" sounds quite similar to that of Burzum's "Dauði Baldrs". As for the other two tracks, discounting the interlude, they're pretty boring, "666 millions d'esclaves et de déchets" sounds a lot worse than on the raw and energetic Macabre transcendance demo, but at least both "666 millions..." and "Aux armes!" have some pretty nice solos, and the samples and trumpets in "Aux armes!" make me think of The Ruins of Beverast's "Summer Decapitation Ritual" for some inexplicable reason. But, of course, this album doesn't have the dark, experimental and mechanistic yet organic brilliance of TRoB or the endless but sensibly restrained and beautiful solos of, say, Pagan Altar, so it's not like you can get a lot of juice from this squeeze. But at least it's passable.
(The points are decent. I feel like the comparisons you're making work rhetorically, but again, pare down the narration and get to your points. The musical descriptions work well here.)
So to sum it up, Split turned out half "okay" in a mediocre way and half bad in a mediocre way, a six out of ten for the traditional part and a four out of ten for the degenerate part respectively. If you want something in the vein of the charmingly offbeat, boozy and kitschy older KPN albums that doesn't resort to mindless copying, there's this Swiss band called Ungfell, the fusion of black metal with hip hop has been done better by Diapsiquir, and for your fix of French folk-tinged melodic black metal you might as well come to Aorlhac - who, moreover, have released another awesome album in 2018, although Peste Noire fans would find more to enjoy on Aorlhac's 2010 album, La cité des vents. And regarding Split, well, a Peste Noire album that can be replaced is definitely a pretty disappointing one to say the least. And this disappointment is more bitter still given that Split is far from hopeless, instead seeming like a half-hearted effort and like Famine could obviously do way better but simply didn't care.
(I think there's decent work here, it just has to be edited down to be more direct. The conversational approach makes it meander around whereas your description is pretty good and I think your critique will work ok once you render out the redundancies and banter. Keep at it, it's not a bad start. Don't hack and slash, either, just take out the useless bits, keep the description and your main points, and see what you end up with.)