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Lying Figures from France released their debut album ‘The Abstract Escape‘ past May. Being influenced by bands such as Katatonia, My Dying Bride, Anathema, and Paradise Lost amongst others, they have created a melodic death/doom metal sound following lyrically themes from noir literature. I will immediately claim that this album is well worth your attention. It is not a copy of its influences, but rather stands equally next to them, as it creates its personal fingerprint in the genre.

Slow and heavy, it gives you a passive-aggressive feeling. The guitar melodies and riffs have something unique in their commonality, the drums have a steady and very powerful tempo. The takeoff comes with the vocals which respond perfectly with the atmosphere of each track. Thibault, the vocalist, shows an amazing ability in the use of his voice. Brutal in the death parts, dark in the doom parts, theatrical in the climax of the tracks and chanting in the clean parts. This feature gives the listener the ability, even without following the lyrics to understand the context of the album. This context, at least to me, is desperate and agonizing. Lying Figures are inspired from the dark themes of cinema and literature (David Lynch and John Carpenter,  H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, amongst others). The result is not necessarily a fantasy world, as while the album plays you can’t be sure if you feel like a prisoner in your own mind or dark thoughts are sitting next to you in flesh and bones.

The very positive thing about ‘The Abstract Escape‘ is that every track has its own identity. There is no repetitive monotony. The blending of death and doom metal unfolds differently in every track. There are theatrical moments like in ‘Monologue Of A Sick Brain‘. There are pure doom depressive moments like in ‘The Mirror‘. There is also the track ‘Remove The Black‘ which perhaps on the contrary of its title has a blackened death metal technique.

Overall, Lying Figures show with their debut album the ability and flexibility to shape the sound of the genre they represent, offering us an abstract escape.

Mary Kalaitzidou