American black metal gets all the attention and credit for innovation (in America anyway) but the French scene makes us look like a nation of rigid, rules-minded purists. Even that country’s most prominent black metal bands are total iconoclasts: Alcest sound like Cocteau Twins, Blut Aus Nord sound like Front 242, Deathspell Omega sound like Univers Zero, Peste Noire sound like wine-stinking Parisian gypsy busker-pickpockets … so in France it’s probably not all that weird when a black metal band like Glorior Belli claims a heavy Southern rock influence. And this is not a casually made reference: Glorior Belli’s last album was called The Great Southern Darkness (not a nod to the South of France). To be fair, the band’s conception of Southern rock seems more Eyehategod than Skynryd, but still, this is black metal based in American blues. Remarkably, that inspiration leads not to a disjointed, awkward hybrid (although it probably should), but just plain gnarly, hooky, raw black metal with a good deep groove. Glorior Belli have just released details on their upcoming fifth LP, Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls (a title that CERTAINLY SUGGESTS a disjointed, awkward hybrid), as well as a track from the album, “I Asked For Wine, He Gave Me Blood.” In this case, the “Southern” in question kinda sounds like Southern Lord, as in: the label behind Nails and All Pigs Must Die and Black Breath. The song is hotter than New Orleans in July. Et beaucoup crasseux. Ecouter.

Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls is out 11/12 via Angonia.