Swiss experimental metal unit, De l’Abîme Naît l’Aube, have appeared from nowhere. This raises more questions than answers, the first one being the name. It translates as: “From the Abyss rises the Dawn.” A mysterious band with six members dressed as druids with no backstory will always create intrigue, and their debut album does just that. But, uh… what is it?
They start ‘Une Pleine Absence’ like a drone band tasked with a film score for the next 28 Days filmfranchise. Tom drums flutter with no regularity, a digeridoo effect hides in the background, chords resonate under soft strokes. A storm brews behind the scenes as meditative female harmonies ghost through the channels for the first three minutes and forty-five seconds until the tension becomes too great. But this group do not give you the release right away; they make you wait. It’s a relief when the distorted guitars and hard-hitting drumbeats wash everything away, and that’s the point. You’re in the right place if you want an injection of steroids to summon the energy for an insurmountable task that’ll make or break you. Yet the most surprising feature of this flaming passion is the lack of words. The Swiss collective use choral chants and harmonies and elongate their aggressive parts into sustained expressions of pain. Only at the eight-minute mark do they give us the melancholy male-female vocals reminiscent of Pure Reason Revolution.
Each song on this LP is like a therapy session conducted by Lingua Ignota for the benefit of artist and audience. You forget it’s a metal album until the crunchy down-picking riff of ‘Un Sanctuaire de Cendres’ brings you back to your senses, but it feels insensitive to reach for the air guitar when the vocal harmonies are so dignified in their solemnity. Thankfully, Sébastien Defabiani puts his throat through immense pain to scream the words in the next section. You might look over your shoulder to see if anyone’s watching. This is the home you always wanted, and there’s no need to be ashamed. Listen how they bring the first climax to a close at 03:15, only to start again in search of another euphoric rage. The volatile black metal of Liturgy comes to mind here.
You don’t have to do anything other than embrace the wild emotions. That’s the most enjoyable feature of this record. De l’Abîme Naît l’Aube do the work for you. Your job is to spectate and absorb the feelings in the room. Who cares if the first three minutes and thirty seconds of ‘Le Vertige d’une Descendance’ dwell in the sorrows of disenchanted stumming and downtempo drums? You’ll need energy for later when things turn from misery to murder. Is that an intelligible human phrase or a devotional harmony that introduces the whispered spoken word monologue at 02:45? Could it be that every member of the band has their eyes closed at this point?
Like The Ocean and Cult of Luna, there’s no need to learn the names of the songs. The listening experience from start to finish wraps you in the same anguished atmosphere of loneliness and disillusionment with the drift of life. The howling vocal techniques in closing track, ‘Une Absolue Présence’, are more native Indian than Neurosis, but they remind you that this band pull together in the same direction when one of them proposes an outlandish idea. More importantly, they make it work. Yes, there are more advances than defensive retreats in this music, but the unpredictability is not oppressive. With so much space in their compositions, they can float anything in the mix. And imagining oneself floating is the greatest pleasure of Rituel : Initiation. How many artists can create that sensation in the listener?
Kirk Houghton
Verdict
Release Date: 13/02/2026
Record Label: Hypnotic Dirge Records
Standout tracks: Un Sanctuaire de Cendres; Une Absolue Présence
Suggested Further Listening: The Ocean – Pelagial (2013), Liturgy – 93696 (2023), Domhain – In Perfect Stillness (2026)