Let's talk about Famine and Peste Noire! (KPN)

Starting this thread about the 'controversial' black metal band Peste Noire. Some say they are out of control evil, others say they are pretty mild for such an 'edgy' genre. Unlike other 'shock value' bands, like Morbid or Jon Nodtveidt's Dissection, they actually produced good music.

Albums like La Sanie des Siècles, Folkfuck Folie and L'Ordure à L'état Pur come to mind.

The frontman and vocalist, Famine, has also often faced accusations of being NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal), something he has always denied. But he does flirt with open provocation quite often, calling his group (Kommando Peste Noire) 'National Satanist Black Metal'... to match the initials.

So... What do you think about Peste Noire?

I wish we would do away with the "Let's Talk About..." titles. Peste Noire is good music. Don't care much about controversies.

From a famous Peste Noire interview.

I thought I had invented the term hooligan black metal because I'd never listened to Grand Belial's Key and I didn't know they had invented it

Lol. Hool black metal ;)

Yeah KPN is pretty legit if you overlook their folk era which sounds like a wet noodle version of Nightwish with angry drunk vocals.

But they are French, and the entire French BM scene had to suffer the stigma of being associated with both 1) the entirely astroturfed "Légions Noire" shite show, 2) the Antoine Grand nonsense... they will likely never recover

La Sanie Über Alles. Frog Black Metal Reigns Supreme. Hail Anton Grand, The Heavy Metal Expert!

Apart from L'Ordure À L'Etat Pur, which wasn't too bad, everything else is quite ridiculous. Famine doesn't exactly shine with intellect (or maybe it's just a role he plays).

The guy is, well, "complicated"... All the rambling about the GUD (a far-right group) and racial purity :/

But the music is amazing, "A la chaise Dyable" is one of my all-time favorite songs. It's a shame he speaks in some kind of made up French (and that he and his singer regularly make grammatical errors).

I think Famine is acting like a thug. Like he has a hard on over thugs from the hood. Pretty cringe IMO.

@GBK: the guy fully embraces this aspect of his personality :) it's pretty cringeworthy but he doesn't hide it :(

LOL... Quand je bois du vin 🍷

Don't like, never liked. The female vocals? In black metal? He trying to be the next Absurd, or the next Cradle of Filth?

Neige is cool, though, since we drank together at a festival (Hellzone, 2018).

A typical example of the possibility - necessity - of separating the man from the artist. I really like some of his albums, but Famine is still a rather peculiar person.

Is this a right-wing band?

@Macaque: A group of far-right extremists, according to some. Then again, they also ran the "all black metal is racist" thing on Metalious a few years ago.

Peste Noire is often listed among the top controversial black metal bands although, as many have pointed out, they are relatively 'safe' compared to some other more mainstream acts (Absurd, Enslaved, Dissection, M8l8th, Antekhrist, etc).

Some early demos of the band were pretty crazy though (***** Supremacy, etc)

Up until L'Ordure, Famine was making some really good black metal. After that he completely went off the rails.

What he's doing now isn't really black metal anymore. It's a weird mix of folk, traditional metal, gangsta rap, grindcore and thug/slavic hool culture. He said himself that he wanted to make a rap/reggaetron album in the near future: see "the next Peste Noire will be a gangsta rap album" interview on VM.

From the "Euronymous of France" to the "DMX of Telegram" the evolution of this man throughout the decades is something to behold.

@Praetor: No, I think he's gone back to that style. He released an experimental hip-hop album about ten years ago, but it wasn't objectively very good.

His latest releases are in the same black/folk vein as La Chaise Dyable or Le Retour des Pastoureaux.

Very good band, I listened to them a lot when I was a teenager.

La Condi Hu, Dans Ma Nuit, Le Dernier Putsch :O

I'm from the French West Indies and I'm Black, just so you know :)

He's right, it's not NSBM, a genre that has a very distinct style that's closer to war metal (see Absurd, Conqueror, Warkvlt, Revenge...)

KPN is something else entirely.

Just because a band flirts with the far right doesn't mean it's NSBM (Darkthrone, Deathspell Omega, Bathory, Burzum, etc.)

I really like La Sanie des Siècles. I like l'Ordure à l'état Pur.

I don't know much more than that, but the band has balls, which is clearly lacking in the nowadays scene.