Dirge

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Dirge
Dirge Live at Point FMR, Paris in autumn 2007
Dirge Live at Point FMR, Paris in autumn 2007
General information
origin FranceFrance France , Paris
Genre (s) Post metal
founding 1994
resolution 2019
Website www.dirge.fr
Founding members
Singing , guitar , programming
Marc T.
Singing, programming
Laurent P. (until 1996)
Last occupation
Guitar, vocals, programming
Marc T.
Alain B. (since 1999)
Luz (since 2014)
Vocals, guitar
Stêphane L. (since 2001)
former members
bass
David K. (1998-2001)
guitar
Franck T. (1998-2001)
bass
Christian M. (2001-2014)
Christophe "Zomb" D. (1999-2014)

Dirge (en. Lament ) was a French post-metal band founded in 1994 .

history

Dirge was founded in 1994 by Marc T. and Laurent P. as an industrial metal project. Years later, the band expressed a great influence through Godflesh , which Dirge served as a role model in their early days. As with Godflesh, the first recordings were based on slow, heavily distorted guitar playing in front of a synthetically generated soundscape and a computer-generated rhythm. Industrial metal was retained from Dirge through to the debut album Down, Last Level . During the recording of the debut album, there was the first change of personnel in the band, Laurent P. left Dirge, while David K. and Franck T. joined them, in the following years there were several line-up changes.

In 1999, Alain B. became a permanent drummer in the band. Christophe "Zomb" D. also joined in 1999 with a sampler . With this line-up, Dirge began trying to give their sound a "less mechanical and more organic, heavy and suffocating atmosphere". With this album, the band began to take Neurosis as a role model and arranged their music around the guitar sound, which was intended as "destructive". After the second album Blight and Vision Below a Faded Sun , which was released in 2000 , David K. and Franck T. were replaced by Stêphane L. and Christian M., so that after the release a line-up was formed that continued until Christophe left " Zomb "D. and the change of bassist in 2014 should have existed.

In the following years the band experimented with various guest musicians. Among other things, Dirge integrated female vocals, a didgeridoo and a violin into the sound of the band and tried to emancipate himself from the status of the neurosis epigon.

“As for the band, sometimes we were annoyed by being constantly compared to NEUROSIS. Nowadays we just don't care. We like NEUROSIS, but they do their own thing - and we do ours. And if they have had a huge impact on us in the past, I think we are going our own way now, with our own style. "

- Stéphane L.

In March 2019, the band announced the breakup after 25 years of activity and the release of eight albums.

style

The band members admit that they belong to Post-Metal and call the categorization of the band as helpful, but they are generally disinterested in the categorization. Rather, the music is an expression of the personal sensitivities of the musicians and something that is naturally implemented in the music.

“I'm not going to use technical descriptions to describe our music because we don't care, any more than we care to be a part of this post-anything scene. As for these categorizations, well, it has always been like that up until now, and as a reader of the music press, I find these drawers useful at times. "

- Stéphane L.

The pieces usually build up over a longer period of time, so that many of the band's titles are well over 10 minutes in length. According to Stéphane L., this length serves to create the corresponding “atmosphere” , which is often described as depressive . The individual pieces cannot develop fully in “four or five minutes”.

Discography

Dirge 2015 Live in Mülheim an der Ruhr
  • 1994: Infected Brain Machine (demo)
  • 1995: Mind Time Control (demo)
  • 1996: Dead Network Access (Demo)
  • 1998: Down, Last Level (It's Time to Records, CD - ITT 001176-2)
  • 2000: Blight and Vision Below a Faded Sun (Blight Records, CD - BR 01)
  • 2004: And Shall the Sky Descend (Equilibre Music, CD - EM 014; 2007 Reissue, Blight Records, CD - BR02 / 1)
  • 2007: Wings of Lead Over Dormant Seas (Equilibre Music / Blight Records, 2CD - EM 012 / EML 012)
  • 2011: Elysian Magnetic Fields (Blight Records / Division Records, CD - DR 041)
  • 2014: Hyperion ( Debemur Morti , CD - DMP 0104)
  • 2017: Alma Baltica ( Division Records , LP)
  • 2018: Lost Empyrean (Debemur Morti, CD - DMP 0167)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Official website. Dirge, accessed April 24, 2014 .
  2. a b c Alexander Eitner: Stéphane L. & Alain B. von Dirge. (No longer available online.) Metal News, archived from the original on April 24, 2014 ; Retrieved April 24, 2014 .
  3. a b Pfaelzer: Interview with Stéphane L. Neckbreacker, accessed on April 24, 2014 .