Archvile King – Aux Heures Désespérées
Release Date: 23rd January 2026
Label: Les Acteurs de L’Ombre Productions
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal
FFO: Les Chants de Nihil, Seth, Walg, Sig:Ar:Tyr, Simulacre, Rhûn, Heltekvad.
Review By: Malte Brigge
“Gwyneth Paltrow Is a Lich” is a great name for a song or anytime you need to answer the question, “What the hell just happened?” It was released by a band that sounds like it would be competing with Aura Noir to open for Slayer. That 2020 EP, Vile, was all thrash and hellish blackened vocals, but you would never know it was Archvile King if your introduction to them is their second LP, Aux Heures Désespérées. Abandoning thrash (as is the way of all things) in favor of tremolo picking and atmospheric narrative, French multi-instrumentalist Baurus is here to continue the tragic and violent saga of the Worm King’s war against humanity. Are these the songs we need, or the songs we deserve, in such desperate hours?
Archvile King’s evolution from Kreator-spawned blackened thrash to atmospheric black metal has been swift. Their 2022 full-length debut A la Ruine had already traded in palm-muted chromatics for melodic tremolo, groove-laden blast beats and moody atmospherics. Aux Heures Désespérées pushes even further into the icy realms while toying with new inspirations. Opener Riposte starts with a brief, almost industrial intro that resonates ominously as if from huge, hollow factory pipes before a death shriek, blast beats and glissando trems crash in. Baurus’s vocals are aptly reverbed to create a huge, hollow, ritualistic feeling, his raspy hell-furnace occasionally tracked by a deep death roar, creating an intimidating, subterranean shadow presence. The guitars never sit still, imbricating various lines while keeping the melody tight. Acts like Walg and Sig:Ar:Tyr come to mind in the way songs are crafted and layered, particularly in the way guitar lines twine through each other in harmonious distinction. Baurus makes good use of the studio to create multiple tonal shifts (L’excusé, Aux Heures Désespérées) and highlight musical plot twists. It’s this approach to sound as much as the composition that makes some passages and riffs so memorable and surprisingly ear-wormy.
Without distracting from excellent guitar work and assertive structures that remind me why I fell in love with metal in the first place, Baurus shows fine dynamic awareness in the flow of the album and uses a variety of instruments and effects to maintain the somber though fierce mood. Drizzly rain; bright, sleety strings and bells (L’excusé); dragging chains and cavernous croaking (Le Carnival du Roi des Vers); beautiful, airy, neoclassical pipes and prayerlike choirs (Riposte, Sépulture) balance songs, introduce moods, keep the album intriguing, almost mysterious, on multiple listens. There’s a sonic sense of narrative in the music, whether or not you follow the story in the lyrics, which opens the way for the album to flow meaningfully towards its mournful, cinematic conclusion. The final track is not a throwaway outro, but a carefully crafted, synth-driven dénouement that knows there is no other way out.
There’s something in the way Archvile King approaches black metal that reminds me in turns of Baurus’ countrymen like Seth, Les Chants de Nihil, Hyrgal and early Jours Pȃles. Sticking close to the frostiness of the form with a readiness to introduce unlikely instruments, flirt with posty atmospherics (Sépulture, Et Aux Hommes Misérables), engage more diverse styles (A Ces Batailles Abandonées opens with an almost indie downstroke and later pickslides into a totally rad trad riff that has a fist-pump, fuck yeah feel to it), drop into spacious grooves (Le Carnival du Roi de Vers) and tease dissonance (Aux Heures Désespérées) helps build an almost uplifting sense of beauty despite the pitiless, ravaged world being portrayed. The title track has an anthemic rise to it, and when the guitars break the main riff into a syncopated muting out of which layers of melody unravel, it makes you want to have hope. Wrap it all up in a delightfully warm production that never loses sight of the frigid landscape, and Archvile King is vying for my RotM for January.
I have struggled to untangle myself from Aux Heures Désespérées, and the more I listen, the more I feel the inevitability of this album. I’m impressed with how fluid and symphonic in structure it is. Sinewy, serpentine melodies, mournful guitar solos, well-timed ambiance and powerful vocals wrap you up in its story and set you down in the heart of its melancholy. Archvile King has evolved from a negligible thrash band into a formidable black metal outfit. If the Worm King doesn’t win first, I’m very keen to see where this evolution will take them next.
(4 / 5)
