With Nous, Le Venin, Mourir think outside the box and strike gold with a record that puts the post in post-black.
Release date: July 10, 2026 | Pelagic Records | Bandcamp | Instagram
I’ve got a serious bone to pick with the whole post-black tag. Now, my issue isn’t with the bands themselves, as this whole tag was created by music journalists and not musicians themselves. But goddamn is it such a silly premise. Black metal itself went through its own quote unquote post phase in the late nineties, with pretty much every second wave musician dressing up like Neo from The Matrix, and almost every band experimenting heavily in new musical directions. I mean, Dødheimsgard, Manes, and of course Ulver have all pushed the boundaries of what black metal can be long before Wolves In The Throne Room or Deafheaven ever played their first notes.
Sure, I get why the term got applied, and why it stuck. The loud-quiet-loud parts, the 20+ minute songs (sorry, epics), the grandeur, the cinematic feel of it all… you take the Mogwai/Explosions In The Sky post-rock formula, add some blastbeats, tremolo picking, and shrieks on top, and voilà – post-black is now a formula too. Sure, we got a bunch of killer bands branded this way, sometimes even retroactively: Weakling, Ash Borer, Fell Voices. But then, like its bigger brother post-metal, post-black quickly devolved into a boring, copy-paste recycling bin of diminishing returns.
And yet, there is still hope, post-black nerds. Not all bands are cut from the same cloth, and some bands that play under the post-black umbrella actually got the memo: they look beyond their immediate counterparts, take a note from the weird, progressive turn second wave black metal took 30 years ago, and try to do things differently. One such rare gem of a band is Mourir, whose new album, Nous, Le Venin, is an intelligent, mature, and captivating effort in creative songwriting that truly respects and understands black metal.
Right off the bat, we’re treated to a signature Mourir move: a strong, creative album opening that pulls you right in. Seriously, go check out the opening song of their previous album, Disgrâce; I get chills just thinking about it. This time, sadly, there are no snorts involved, but it’s no less effective, and it establishes a key feature early: Nous, Le Venin is a masterclass in building tension and sustaining release. From the opening of its first track “Feu D’un Regard”, where a spiraling, labyrinthine guitar part opens up to a stuttering, epic dirge; to the final crescendo of its ultimate track, “Nous, Le Venin”, where the massive black metal thrust of the entire album is slowly dissipated into a dreamy, hymn-like ending passage– and every step of the way, all across its runtime. Mourir know just how far to push things in one direction before pulling their strings back the other way, always in the service of the song, always in service of the album as a clear, singular work.
Having come up through the French hardcore scene, and having released records via Throatruiner Records, home of like-minded up-to-no-gooders like Plebeian Grandstand and Verdun, Mourir appropriately showcase a wide range of influences and stylistic flares to their core black metal sound. There’s the Amen Ra devotional post-metal moments that open the third song, “Mon Rêve Animal”; the ecstatic major chord first section of its follow-up, “Ja Est Absent”, in all of its Deafheaven glory; and the Times Of Grace-era Neurosis stomp of the second half of “Aux Inutiles”, which they fuse into black metal in a smart, inventive way. All throughout the record, the band demonstrates a real swagger and comfort with pulling from different genres to enrich their sound. They have a sonic identity that sits nicely alongside Oathbreaker and Ulcerate, two bands that took post-black and molded their own version of it, reaching incredible sonic peaks in the process.
Still, this is not a perfect record. Some parts don’t stick as well as others. Some elements of their sound, like the dissonant guitar parts in the opening song and “Ennui Ennemi”, which are so effective and addictive, get discarded somewhere along the way. And the closing title track leaves me a bit cold, as it pulls harder towards a more typical post-black direction, quiet parts and crescendos and all. But even with these setbacks, Nous, Le Venin is still one of the best records I’ve heard so far this year, at times even giving Ultha’s last record a run for its money (and I loooved that record). Pelagic Records deserve all their flowers for putting out this release, which sits quite far away from what people usually associate the label with. It’s not a pairing I could have seen coming, having followed the band since their debut came out, but I love the options it opens to them, as evidenced by the number of videos produced for the songs here, and I love what it might mean for the future direction of the label.
A mere 6 years after their debut, Mourir shows the confidence and maturity of bands double their age.Their latest album is another strong entry in an already strong discography, and another step towards what I suspect is true greatness. These guys have a real masterpiece brewing in them; it’s only a matter of time until they reach it, of that I am sure. So if you haven’t heard them before, and want to get on the bandwagon before they explode, Nous, Le Venin is a great entry point.
