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Another killer release from Les Acteurs de l'ombre Productions, who I guess are to black metal what Dying Victims Productions are to heavy/speed/thrash in terms of quality of their roster. Switzerland's Versatile offer us some punchy, violent, borderline symphonic industrial black metal on Les litanies du vide. I'm usually not big on industrial influences in metal, but sometimes it works, and Versatile are masters at making it work on this album. The synths remind me of what some of the more aggressive Scandinavian symphonic black metal bands do; they're hard to ignore, but they're so dark and evil-sounding that, unlike some bands, they make the music sound heavier and more violent rather than mellow it down. The vocals are demented, a mix of harsh vocals, screams, not much clean but some; they all have in common a powerful angry vibe that gels so well with the music which, despite being relatively refined, still comes off a little raw in the delivery and so busy and powerful that you'd think there's an entire symphonic orchestra playing this. A very addictive album.