After bringing the house down at the Olympia during his previous visits to Paris, Perturbator ended his marathon European tour of twenty-five dates in one month with two nights at the Bataclan. On the first of those two nights organised by The Link Productions, we immersed ourselves in the pre-apocalyptic world of his recent album Age of Aquarius (review)... But before talking about the end of the world and neon pentacles, there were the opening acts, which are often a very interesting part of Perturbator's concerts (in recent years, for example, we've seen Author & Punisher, Ho99o9, and Regarde les Hommes Tomber).
GOST
As the Bataclan begins to fill up and the sound system plays Hangman's Chair, GosT takes to the stage. Well, “takes to the stage” is perhaps not quite accurate: James Lollar and his bassist Cole Tucker settle wherever they can, with Perturbator's equipment, concealed by a black curtain, taking up most of the stage.
We've already had the opportunity to see GosT on stage several times, and each time felt a bit like after listening to one of the Texan's albums: with the impression of an interesting concept but frustrating execution that sometimes leaves something to be desired. However, tonight, GosT is pleasantly surprising. First of all, visually: after a show at La Machine last year opening for HEALTH in almost total darkness and smoke, and after wearing an uninspired hood as a mask at the last Motocultor festival, GosT has taken care of his appearance! Not only can we see something, but Lollar is wearing a kind of mask/grid straight out of Mad Max, which is pretty funny. He doesn't talk, but he's very expressive. We're treated to a parody of a prayer addressed to the blasphemies to come when, at the beginning of the set, he kneels in front of his audience. Yeah, we're going to have fun.
And then there's the sound: after the overwhelming bass that drowned everything out at the concerts we just mentioned, tonight the mix is clearer, allowing you to appreciate the melodic oddities of this possessed darksynth/black metal blend. The chaotic assaults still give a somewhat messy impression at times, but tracks like the frenetic Shiloh's Lament breathe and manage to convey their nightmarish and hellish atmosphere. In half an hour, GosT holds nothing back, the pit roars, and bodies begin to move. Maleficarum and the theatrical Behemoth, where the influence of Perturbator's early tracks is particularly noticeable, take us back ten years, but the setlist is mainly dominated by tracks from the recent Prophecy. Now well known to the public, GosT has his followers who revel in its crashing beats and shrill notes that scream like a flood of panicked souls drowning in the Styx. As usual, enthusiasts will come up against the incomprehension of others, who have not understood this slightly messy synthetic beating, which would probably benefit from allowing its atmospheres a little more time to exist. For a warm-up, however, the mission is accomplished.
KÆLAN MIKLA
If you read us regularly, you know how much Kælan Mikla is a project close to our hearts and how every appearance by the three Icelandic women, though fairly frequent, is an event! There aren't many bands we would forgive for interrupting Tool's The Pot, blaring from the speakers of the Bataclan, which was decidedly inspired in its choice of songs between concerts! So we are delighted to see them back here, settling in before everyone else (from Chelsea Wolfe to Alcest), cementing their place in our withered hearts.
In a dim light barely broken by a few rays of cold light, still sporting their corpse paint tears, Kælan Mikla begins their set gently, hypnotizing their audience with a new, atmospheric, and dramatic track, Mara... then things get confusing: contrary to what is announced on the setlist, we don't recognize the icy tension of Svört Augu's incantations. Has it been shortened? Reinterpreted and mixed with this first track? Damn! No time to worry about it, though, as the three Norns continue with tracks where post-punk influences are more present, such as Draumadís and the unmissable Kalt with its shrill spells screamed by Laufey Soffia.
We still appreciate the poetry that emanates from this universe, the mysteries contained in this song in Icelandic, the (now rare) banshee shrieks (on Sólstöður, they add depth, and a few jokers in the audience respond as best they can), the contemplative synth layers, the bite of certain rhythms, and the sober stage performance. The tour has been long and marked by a few cancellations on their part for health reasons: is it fatigue or the lack of space on stage that seems to hinder the singer's dancing, who is a little more reserved than usual?
A new album is coming, and we've also been treated to the recent Stjörnuljós. While we are obviously bursting with impatience, we are still enjoying hearing so many tracks from Nótt Eftir Nótt and its more peaceful successor Undir Köldum Norðurljósum, because next time some of them will probably have disappeared, just as the first tracks disappeared, their madness giving way to melancholic reveries. Hvítir Sandar marks the end of the ritual. In the studio, there's Alcest. Tonight, Alcest doesn't feel like working and is in the pit saying hello to his friends. That also puts an end to the suspense: no, Perturbator won't take ten minutes out of his setlist to play their joint track, The Age of Aquarius. KælanMikla, even without all the space on stage, even with barely forty minutes, still works their charm, and we can't wait to experience it again, whether as headliners or as one of the opening acts invited by artists from various backgrounds.
PERTURBATOR
We can't resist giving you one last point about the Bataclan setlist: seriously, playing several songs from DOOL (including their awesome cover of Love Like Blood) and Grave Pleasures back-to-back like that, we almost didn't want the concert to start, and we would ALMOST forgive the venue for its layout, which crammed part of the audience into the back of the room, where a constant stream of people made it impossible to breathe. It's only Friday, and Saturday night is shaping up to be a busy one! Come on, let's remove the curtain from the drums, revealing the platform from which James Kent and drummer Dylan Hyard are about to play. And then it begins.
The break had teased us: Perturbator requisitioned all the smoke machines on the European continent, as if Amenra and the Sisters of Mercy had joined forces, plunging the Bataclan into thick fog as the concert began with Lunacy, immersing us in the blue universe of the latest album with a track that alternates between atmospheric heaviness and more frenetic accelerations. The start of the concert is nervous and intense: after the threatening layers, James Kent lets his hair free on Excess. Luckily, his mane acts as a fan, helping to disperse some of the smoke. Then comes The Art of War, very rhythmic, with bits of EBM/EBSM in it. At the front, people are shouting, sweating, and starting to mosh.
As usual with Perturbator, the show is a feast for the eyes. The platform glows in the dark, ooooh!, then starts to rumble and split in two, aaaah!, while a strangely narrow screen between Kent and Hyard alternates between symbols associated with the songs (yessss, there are glowing pentacles!) and live images of the musicians or the audience. It's less iconic than the pentacle arch from two or three years ago, and some of the light displays are less inspired, but it's also more ambitious, more grandiose. Perturbator has focused on immersion, and while we lose the striking device of previous years, we gain something more enveloping that fills the Bataclan space and plunges us into its shadows.
Of course, we take the time to catch our breath during the melancholic Apocalypse Now or Venger, featuring the voices of Kristoffer Rugg (Ulver) and Greta Link, but we're mainly here to shake our booties while looking super dark in the dark. The show features many moments of darkness, echoing the silences that Kent leaves in the middle of songs to build tension and then kick back. So we got what we came for: the dark Corrupted by Design, Humans are Such Easy Prey, whose intro Suicide Commando would be proud of, and the inevitable Neo Tokyo and Future Club towards the end of the set delighted the audience, who partied hard. As usual, the musicians are in the background, Kent sulks in the smoke, and interaction with the audience is limited to a few gestures. The show is to be found both in the stage design and in the crowd, which is in great shape and whose reaction greatly contributes to the atmosphere.
As Tainted Empire signals the end of the concert, one cannot help but appreciate one telling detail: the 2017 album New Model, though short, is very well represented, with half of its tracks having been played. At the time, it marked a turning point in Perturbator's music, which became darker, heavier, more anguished and pessimistic, redefining the “new darksynth model” in the blink of an eye. Since then, Perturbator has only deepened this direction marked by melancholy, bleak horizons, and cold wave influences... Tonight, we saw that feeling depressed in the depths of a futuristic megalopolis can also be done while shaking our booties under shimmering pentacles. We already knew this, but it's good to be reminded.
