Malepeste are up first, and bewitch right from the beginning notes of the accurately titled "Prologue." From there, the stench of brimstone is potent, weaving a spell most serpentine, breathtakingly capturing their live essence, where the sense of ceremony is of the utmost importance: incense and candles, bones and hangings, total and utter austerity. Indeed, Malepeste's half of Ce qui fut, ce qui est, ce qui sera are litanies to the fall of man, sprung forth from minds dedicated to the mysteries of the beyond. Then, Dysylumn follow with four tracks of their own, and with equal potency and intensity. Complementary in their bewitching swirl, Dysylumn take an altogether more wounded path, shot through with a sense of suffering that's blanching to behold. True to their aims, the band was initially formed as a solitary project of ex-Antropofago guitairst Sébastien Besson as a tribute to a loved one who decided to walk on the path of death; here, their evolution through the years takes flight by paradoxically probing the depths, concluding with the split album's "Épilogue."
Translated into English as "what once was, what it is, what it will be," Ce qui fut, ce qui est, ce qui sera artfully lives up to its title, securing both Malepeste and Dysylumn's rising status in the international black metal underground.