Saunders and Dear Hollow bring their high class tastes to the party with their Top Ten(ish) of 2025. Break out the caviar and meths!
La Torture des Ténèbres
Mrs. Frighthouse – Solitude Over Control Review
“How much noise is too much? I used to believe you could never have too much noise, with bands like Theatruum and La Torture des Ténèbres weaponizing it for respectively vicious and otherworldly approaches. Then bands like Ulveblod and the infamous Ordeal & Triumph collaboration happened – and I lost my naivety. Ultimately, as we will see with duo Mrs. Frighthouse, diving into the noise genre offers a low ceiling and an equally low floor.” Extreme noise terror.
La Torture des Ténèbres – Episode VII – Revenge of Unfailing Valor Review
“La Torture des Ténèbres, in spite of the sadistic propensity for aural flaying, offers a unique voice in black metal. A one-woman show with an aesthetic evoking dystopian urban shimmer, decopunk, classic science fiction, and the space age, it conjures images of glittering mile-high cities built on the backs of the impoverished, brave women overcoming the adversity of the stars, the sneaking static cutting through a dictator’s commands through the radio, the jazzy bombasts of the elite’s decadent galas – and the loneliness of it all.” Bravery in the void.
![La Torture des Ténèbres – V / The Lost Colony of Altar Vista [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/La_Torture_des_Tenebres-V.jpg.webp)
La Torture des Ténèbres – V / The Lost Colony of Altar Vista [Things You Might Have Missed 2024]
“The breed of noise that courses through Ottawa one-woman act La Torture des Ténèbres is truly disorienting and off-putting, but it takes on a hypnotizing and triumphant quality when its curious blend of caustic and decadent settles into your bones. While 2016 debuts Acadian Nights and Choirs of Emptiness captured a predictable blend of raw black and spacefaring dark ambient, Civilization is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods found mastermind J.K. taking influence from classic science fiction and decopunk.” One person’s torture…
