Formed in 2012, Stömb is an instrumental modern metal band from Paris, France, whose sound can be described as heavy, powerful, dark and poetic, always combining strong rhythms with ethereal atmospheres. Their debut full-length album The Grey was released in 2015 and gave the band the opportunity to get into the international scene, with a much appreciated performance at that year’s Euroblast Festival in Germany.
Aurélien De Freitas – Guitar
Tom Bonetto – Guitar
Alexandre Garachon – Bass
Tom Gadonna – Drums
In 2017, with the EP Duality Stömb affirmed their musical identity, developing a strong concept based on the dark part of the human’s consciousness. The band performed at multiple events along prestigious artists such as Leprous, Humanity’s Last Breath, Vola, The Algorithm, Kadinja and the UK’s Tech Metal Fest in 2018.
From Nihil, the band’s second album was released in 2020 and was met with great critical acclaim throughout the globe, your very own Velvet Thunder correspondent describing how STÖMB had entered the new decade with a fresh sense of purpose and a new take on French Modern Progressive Metal tagged as being an “instrumental post-djent” quartet (post-djent being a heavy metal subgenre that grew out of djent – with me so far?!). Anyway, because of the pandemic the band could not present it live and confirm their status as a killer live band. Kicking their feet a little, the band bided their time and got creative – Stömb is back, stronger than ever, and launch Massive Disturbed Meta Art upon an unsuspecting world!
Based on the concept of a mystical and spiritual journey, this is a sort of concept album, suggesting the use of psychotropic substances to reach through a trance-like state a higher level of altered consciousness and thereby the transcendence of the human condition….(I think we’ve heard this before, Rob Calvert and Lemmy springing to mind!)
Anyway, on Massive Disturbed Meta Art, international artists such as Jørgen Munkeby (Shining NO/ Emperor), Laure Le Prunenec (exIgorrr/Rïcïnn/Corpo Mente), Léo Natale (The Dali Thundering Concept) and Quentin Godet (Ten56/Kadinja) have all collaborated, the resulting creation offering a totally immersive musical and introspective experience. Still mostly instrumental, the additional guest musicians add a series of unique soundscapes as the video below for the (sort of) title track Meta Art shows.
In fact, the opening track The Realm of Delirium is to my mind a kind of mystic modern rock mini-opera, visually stunning and featuring Laure Le Prunenec’s anguished vocals and imagery, it deserves a second piece of video, again see below!
These two tracks give a fine flavour of the compositions and arrangements featuring throughout the album. It’s not perhaps to everyone’s taste and is maybe a tad limited stylistically, but there’s undoubtedly a sense of the Majestic here – a brave and ultimately successful experiment!
Guests:
Laure Le Prunenec (ex -Igorrr/Rïcïnn/Corpo Mente) – Vocals “The Realm Of Delirium”
Jørgen Munkeby (Shining NO/Emperor) – Saxophone “Meta Art”
Léo Natal (The Dali Thundering Concept) – Guitar “The Extantrasy” and “An Absence Of Sun”
Quentin Godet (Ten56 / Kadinja) – Solo Guitar “Transcendence”
Album Credits:
Recorded by : Stömb
Mixed by Léo Natale at Axone Studio
Mastered by Pierrick Noel at Atelier Mastering
Photos : Nicolas Cazaux
