French (Nu) metal bands are often more interesting to listen to than their American counterparts because of the variety in the songs, the beats they use, the French accent and the sound, which has a specific aspect; it’s open and compact, it’s not overproduced like fellow American bands often tend to do. Sometimes complete insanity in one song. Watcha, Pleymo, Lt-No are a few examples.

Last week I got a new cd on my doorstep, Black Bomb A. This is their second full length album, after giving contributions to a staple of samplers and various artists’ albums. Unfortunately, I can’t speak nor read one word of French, so their biography is one great mystery to me. But I’ll give it a try:

They exist since 1995 and have slowly built up their ‘career’. In 1999 their first album got released and after that, they planned more shows and have played with some famous bands. For their new album they contracted Stephane Kraemer to do the mixing; the same guy who has mixed albums for Watcha, Enhancer and Pleymo.

Three bands that are doing really well at the moment in France, but also outside of it.

Their new cd has some influences from Pleymo and Watcha, but it is a lot more hardcore. The first song opens pretty brutally, but ends with a sort of nu metal chorus. It is an interesting song because of the different parts in it; the guitar lines remind me of Deftones. The next song, suddenly, has some kind of grind core feeling to it. Pretty strange, but it is something different. And since nu metal is almost dead, you have to do some interesting things to keep the listener attracted.

The whole cd is a mix of nu metal, hardcore and some thrash riffs. You can define it with ‘nu metalcore’. A mixture of Skinlab, Deftones, Slipknot, Green Lizard, Bleeding Through and Skip The Rush will do it pretty well. An interesting cd which I can recommend to not only die hard nu metal fans, but also metal fans who want to taste something different yet brutal.