ANA IESU is, at least for now, quite enigmatic: the French black metal/noise/industrial duo emerged from the darkness in 2025. A first track at the beginning of the year, a few live appearances... and already, LA CHAIR ET L'IDEAL, a debut album recorded live at the end of 2024. Browse through the tracks, written in capital letters, and you'll quickly realise that we're not going to get through this without a few bruises: heightened torment, psychological suffering with physical echoes, ANA IESU is all about exorcism.
Recorded live, an important detail: throughout LA CHAIR ET L'IDEAL there is an authenticity, a visceral spontaneity that is its greatest strength. The vocal cords bleed, rage, pain and fear explode. DOREE, CREVEE plunges us into a storm reminiscent of a personal apocalypse as the machines cut us to pieces. Their reverberation adds to the magnitude. Yeah, just one track in and we can already feel that ANA IESU is going to leave us with the kind of impression that burns itself into our skin with a rusty, unsterilised object.
We are sometimes reminded of Lingua Ignota, minus the neoclassical touches and the organ... and not just because of the capitalised titles, as if shouted, or because one of them is called DE LANGUE INCONNUE (Unknown Language). There is the same absolute, unrestrained cathartic approach, the same need to transform darkness into an almost mystical storm, the same tendency to paralyse us with terrifying screams. Incidentally, according to machine translators, ‘ana iesu’ seems to mean ‘and Jesus’ in Maori... Probably a huge coincidence, but one that accentuates the mystical dimension of a tracklist that can be reinterpreted as a female messianic ordeal, between evocations of the divine and a finale in the form of abandonment under the blue sky! It just goes to show that when you want to find connections, not only do you find them, but you also end up talking nonsense.
Enough with the rambling, we're not here to joke around. The machines cut us up, the voice scrapes us raw, a few ghostly notes repeat themselves until they become alienating: nothing is reassuring, nothing is soothing. Yet, despite its often noisy approach, the electronic music also sets rhythms that help the listener access this magma of noise and fury, hypnotic pulsations that imprint the tracks directly into our skulls. Paradoxically, ANA IESU is as painful and opaque as it is accessible, thanks precisely to these industrial touches that give it the air of an incantatory ritual. Rest assured, however: you won't be dancing.
This monolith of darkness humanised itself a bit, halfway through, briefly revealing its vulnerability. DIEU QUELLE TRISTESSE and FLECHES ET FLAMBEAU have that scent of defeat and despair, reminding us how silence can be more violent and disturbing than the most intense sonic chaos. Black metal, harsh noise eruptions: we're not here to be spared. It is in its final moments that LA CHAIR ET L'IDEAL is at its strongest, with ABANDONNEE, when panicked sobs give way to machines with a funereal heaviness, abandoning us in turn in a suffocating synthetic fog from which a threatening melody emerges, like a continuation of that of DE LANGUE INCONNUE. ANA IESU cannot be accused of doing things by halves or lacking ideas: we never get used to the suffering and madness of this first album, which jolts us around in an impressive universe where emotions are as powerful as the sounds that crush us. It's radical, it hurts, it's massive, frightening and beautiful.
