It would be easy to assume that behind Petit Nuage Noir, which in French means small black cloud, is a band from France, but in fact we are dealing with a band from Poland. Besides Aahros, who also features in Flammae, drummer Gypsy of Coldrope and bass player Rambog also are part of the band that shortly after its formation in 2022 released their debut album ‘Among the Graves’.
Compared to Flammae, whose sound seems heavily inspired by old Mayhem, Petit Nuage Noir takes influences from a wider range of the Scandinavian Black Metal scene. Some elements sound more like the old Norwegian scene, but there are also hints of bands like Craft and even Marduk to be found amongst the 27 minutes of material on the band’s debut. Where Flammae’s approach to Black Metal was a lot more straightforward, Petit Nuage Noir’s riffs are also a bit more adventurous and forward thinking, making it sound a bit more modern and a perfect fit with the current Polish scene. What both bands do have in common is a high level of intensity, as well as Aahros’ impressive vocals. That is, his shrieks are impressive, as the clean vocals in ‘Wolf of Black Metal’ can probably use a little bit of work.
The overall impression that ‘Among the Graves’ leaves is a positive one. The material comes across as coherent, dynamic and intense, alternating between intense fast sections to more midpaced grooving parts without losing any of its strengths. Apart from an experiment here and there that may need some tweaking it’s certainly a strong debut.
