Borgne - Renaître de ses Fanges

Released by: Les Acteurs de l'Ombre Productions

Release Date: 14.03.25

Running Time: 63:36

Score: 9/10

Good afternoon, dear hearts. It has been quite the week at Crow Cottage. Firstly, it has been confirmed that I will shortly no longer be wrangling recalcitrant young gentlemen or dragging them out of places they shouldn’t be at half past four in the morning. No, instead I have been promoted and will now be wrangling the wranglers, who are frankly more trouble than the recalcitrant young gentlemen, being as they are supposedly functioning adults. Let me tell you freely that there is no such thing as a functioning adult in children’s social care. We all have incipient alcoholism and a sense of humour so dark it has its own event horizon. I’ve been doing it for ten years and, well, you all know what I’m like by now, surely?

Anyway, lots of paperwork instead of having things flung at my head. I’m looking forward to it. Another momentous thing is that Mrs Dark Juan and I went out (an occasion in itself!) to Cuppapug café in Manchester. This is in fact a café full of Pugs. Your good correspondent immediately plonked himself in the middle of the floor and fell instantly in love with a small black Pug girl. I have applied to adopt her. Mrs Dark Juan doesn’t know yet.  She though I was just off talking to a nice lady. When do you think would be a good time to tell her?

The third thing is that Moss the Boss, Ruiner of Worlds and possessor of the Paw of Doom ™ has had his balls off. Normally, this would make a dog feel a bit sorry for himself and a bit down. It appears that it has only increased Moss’s rage and desire for destruction. He’s supposed to not jump around but has mainly been desperate for our other dog to play and has taken to shouting to be taken outside rather than just going and fucking doing it.

The Platter of Splatter ™ has been unleashed, and the offering placed upon it on this glorious day is from Swiss Industrial Black Metallers Borgne, who have been in existence for twenty years, and who I chose from the review list simply because it said they played Industrial Black Metal, having not heard of them before. Obviously, as you can tell by the titles of the songs, this is a French language album, and although I understand the words I am not going to trouble you with any translations because frankly we would be here all day, and it does you lot good to do a bit of work.

Borgne is a duo, with Bornyhake taking care of pretty much everything apart from keyboards, which are the province of Lady Kaos.

This album is not quite what I expected. It’s rather more Black Metal and less Industrial than I thought it would be. That isn’t to say that there is no Industrial influence there, as ‘Même si l'enfer m'attire dans sa perdition’ throws everything from wintry cold, savage howling and pummelling Industrial beats to full on Gothic cabaret in the space of the ten minutes it lasts, and it is a surprisingly beautiful beast underneath all the spikes and blood coating it, and once you look beyond the ocular targeting implants and boosted musculature.

‘Condamnée à errer dans les méandres’ is a song that has absolutely ZERO fucking about either, being as it is a hyperspeed run through Symphonic Black Metal with an admixture of droning keyboards and fizzing, sparking guitar work, but never dropping the velocity below superstellar. So far, this album is fucking killer as it successfully marries the cold introspection and absolute hatred of Anaal Nathrakh with the epic quality of Emperor and the shuddering maschinenklang of Ministry at their most visceral. That’s an intoxicating brew to be sure, and Dark Juan is somewhat surprised at this level of horror and misanthropy coming out of Switzerland, a country that Dark Juan thought was quite a happy and ordered one. Clearly there is something evil lurking just beneath that façade of respectability – something that belches fire and brimstone and radiates menace and disapprobation.

Which is what Borgne does very successfully. “Renaître de ses Fanges” (“To Rise From The Ashes” or “To Rise From The Mire” depending on who you believe and whether Swiss French has slightly different meanings from Academie French) is a screaming howl from the darkness, a visceral roar from inside a great fast forest, the sound of lament and fear emanating from the gates of Hell as you tremblingly approach, your back shivering with fear and your hands clammy and cold… It is a grim, desolate and freezingly grey sonic landscape where there is no solace, no respite from the endless barrage of sound that pummels you into teary-eyed, exhausted submission – it is musical Brutalism, all roughly finished, colourless concrete and functional design with no designed-in human factors engineering, or indeed any thought of the human element at all. It’s kind of like visiting Cambuslang. Or anywhere in Eastern Europe where the Soviets were building stuff that wasn’t designed to show off how great Communism was. Behind the glittering boulevards and the flawless marble is where you’d find Borgne – skulking in a predatory fashion in the darkness between coldly functional residential flat blocks and darkened, rusting warehouses, snatching and feeding upon struggling human prey and screeching hatred at the world at large.

You might infer that I am a bit of a fan, and you’d be right. “Renaître de ses Fanges” is a blistering album. It is heavy as fuck. Like heavier than the fucking massive balls of anyone who serves in the emergency services. Their sound has a curiously hypnotic quality, though – Dark Juan is not sure whether it is blunt force cranial trauma or whether it is sensory overload, but there are parts of this album where it is possible to find surcease, even though there is an entire fucking maelstrom screaming around you. There are parts where the noise and the horror are comforting. Which is probably not what Borgne to hear, but I have always had this sense of peace around Black Metal.

Yes, I like Borgne very much. If you like Black Metal and Industrial, then you will get off on this album in a big way. Maybe not so much if you’re a BM purist, although the Industrial fan will find lots to amuse themselves with. Anyway, I have some Faxe extra-strong (10%! It was Demon beer in France that gave me the taste for stuff that you could use to lay roads) beer in the fridge so I am going to go and drink that and hand you over to the Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System.

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Le système breveté de notation des éclaboussures de sang de Dark Juan pour mes amis francophones. J'oublie parfois qu'il y a des francophones en Suisse. Normalement, vous parlez suisse-allemand, n'est-ce pas?

Das patentierte Dark Juan-Blutspritzer-Bewertungssystem für meine deutschsprachigen Freunde. Ich frage mich, ob es auch nötig ist, es ins Italienische zu übersetzen, denn ich glaube, es gibt einen kleinen Teil der Schweiz, der Italienisch spricht. Scheiß drauf, ich mache es trotzdem!

 Il sistema brevettato di valutazione degli schizzi di sangue di Dark Juan per i miei amici di lingua italiana. L'ho già fatto in francese e tedesco, quindi spero di non offendere nessuno svizzero. Anche se sono sicuro di averlo già fatto!) awards Borgne 9/10 for a brutal, yet beautiful album that has plastered Dark Juan to his seat and left him speechless with its combination of heaviness, horror and violence.

TRACKLISTING:

Introspection du Néant (Introspection of Nothingness)

Comme une tempête en moi qui gronde (Like a Storm Rumbling Within Me)

Même si l'enfer m'attire dans sa perdition (Even If Hell Draws Me Into Its Perdition)

Condamnée à errer dans les méandres (Doomed To Wander in its Twists and Turns)

Ils me rongent de l'intérieur (They Gnaw at Me From the Inside)

Dans un tourbillon de douleur (In a Whirlwind of Pain)

Un espace hors du temps (A Space Outside of Time)

Royaumes de poussière et de cendre (Kingdoms of Dust and Ash)

LINE-UP:

Bornyhake – Vocals, Strings, Electronics, Music

Lady Kaos – Additional Keys

Basstard – Live Bass

---

For more, visit the following links: Instagram | Bandcamp | Facebook  | Spotify