Written By Chris Norris
Welcome To World Metal Weekly France Edition
France’s metal scene has produced some of the most influential and internationally recognized bands in heavy music.
Gojira reshaped modern metal with groove, conscience, and global reach, while Alcest carved out an entirely new emotional language by blending black metal roots with atmosphere and beauty. Together, they represent France’s most visible exports but they’re only the surface.
Beneath that recognition lies a scene defined by contrast that’s colored with intellect, elegance, tradition and disruption. From avant-garde chaos and industrial power to ideological black metal and cinematic post-metal, French heavy music thrives on tension rather than uniformity.
This week’s World Metal Weekly France Edition explores that depth through seven artists who each reveal a different facet of the country’s uncompromising approach to heaviness.
Catch up on past WMW features:
Finland Edition Sweden Edition
Scotland Edition Wales Edition
Each edition stands alone, but together they form a growing map of metal scenes around the world.
World Metal Weekly is A Metal Lair™ Original Series
Igorrr – Metal Blade Records
City: Clermont-Ferrand
Gateway Track: Very Noise (Spirituality and Distortion 2020)
“Very Noise” is Igorrr at their most immediate and unhinged. It hits fast, flips moods constantly, and somehow still grooves despite sounding like five genres fighting in a stairwell.
The track is absurd, aggressive, and weirdly catchy, which makes it the perfect entry point. If you’ve never heard Igorrr before, this song makes it instantly clear that normal rules no longer apply.
Deep Cut: Pavor Nocturnus (Hallelujah 2012)
“Pavor Nocturnus” shows the darker, more unsettling side of Igorrr. It leans into tension and atmosphere, blending ritualistic unease with sudden bursts of extremity.
This track feels less playful and more claustrophobic, like something creeping around the edges of a bad dream. It rewards repeat listens and shows how deep and uncomfortable Igorrr is willing to go beyond the chaos.
Why Them:
Igorrr embodies the French scene’s refusal to play by anyone else’s rules. Blending breakcore chaos, extreme metal, baroque textures, and absurdist humor, the project treats genre as raw material rather than boundaries.
Igorrr isn’t heavy because they are loud, they’re heavy because they destabilize expectations. That fearless experimentation makes their music the perfect gateway into France’s metal identity. Confrontational, intellectual, and unapologetically strange.
Mass Hysteria– Verycords
City: Paris
Gateway Track: L’enfer des dieux (Matière Noire 2015)
This track hits with pure momentum. “L’enfer des dieux” is tight, heavy, and built to move a crowd, blending groove metal punch with a cold industrial edge.
The riffs lock in fast, the chorus sticks, and the French vocals give it extra weight and authority. It is the kind of song that makes Mass Hysteria’s reputation make sense within seconds.
Deep Cut: Le Grand Réveil (Tenace – Part 1 2023)
“Le Grand Réveil” slows things down just enough to let the tension build. It feels more deliberate and atmospheric, trading immediacy for pressure.
The song stretches out, leaning into repetition and mood while still hitting hard when it needs to. This track shows Mass Hysteria’s ability to evolve without losing their core heaviness.
Why Them:
Mass Hysteria represent the pulse of modern French metal in its most direct form. They are heavy without being pretentious, political without being preachy, and built for real rooms full of real people.
Their use of French lyrics is not a gimmick, it is part of their identity, giving their music a sense of urgency and confrontation that feels rooted in place.
Mass Hysteria prove that groove mixed with sheer physical impact can coexist without watering each other down.
Benighted – Season of Mist
City: Saint-Étienne
Gateway Track: Let the Blood Spill Between My Broken Teeth (Asylum Cave 2011)
This is the song most people hear first, and for good reason. It captures everything Benighted do well in one violent burst. The pace is relentless, the riffs are sharp, and the vocals sound genuinely feral rather than showy.
It is brutal but controlled and hectic without falling apart. If you want to understand why Benighted have the reputation they do, this track gets you there fast.
Deep Cut: Mother Earth, Mother Whore (Ekbom 2024)
This track shows how far Benighted have pushed their sound in recent years. It is darker, more psychological, and heavier in a way that feels deliberate rather than frantic.
The song leans into groove and tension, letting the brutality sink in instead of rushing past it. It feels hostile and uncomfortable in the best possible way, showing the band’s evolution without sacrificing their core violence.
Why Them:
Benighted represent the most uncompromising side of French extreme metal. Singing in English and built on constant touring, they have earned their reputation through consistency and sheer intensity rather than hype.
Their recent standalone track The Spineless Freak continues the violent psychological thread that defines their Ekbom era, proving the band is still moving forward, not coasting on past records.
With a new album in the works and touring planned through 2026, Benighted belong here as a reminder that France’s metal scene is just as brutal and globally competitive as any in the world.
Novelists – ACKOR Music
City: Paris
Gateway Track: C’est La Vie (C’est La Vie 2020)
C’est La Vie is Novelists at their most accessible without diluting anything. The track leans into melody and atmosphere, letting emotion carry the weight instead of sheer force.
There’s a calm confidence in how it unfolds, balancing modern rock hooks with the band’s darker undercurrent.
It’s an easy entry point that still feels honest, reflective, and quietly heavy in all the right ways.
Deep Cut: Heal the Wound (Noir 2017)
Heal the Wound digs deeper into Novelists’ more introspective side. The song moves with patience, allowing tension to simmer rather than explode, and the payoff feels earned instead of forced.
There’s a sense of emotional fatigue woven into the structure, as if the song is processing something rather than performing it. It’s subtle, brooding, and quietly devastating if you give it the time it asks for.
Why Them:
Novelists don’t chase volume or theatrics. Their power lives in sustaining structure. There’s a quiet tension running through their music, the kind that builds slowly and stays with you long after the track ends.
They balance post-rock atmosphere with indie rock vulnerability, never forcing emotion, just letting it surface naturally. In a city crowded with extremes, Novelists stand out by knowing when to pull back and let the song breathe.
Deathspell Omega – Norma Evangelia Diabli
City: Poitiers
Gateway Track: Apokatastasis Pantôn (Paracletus 2010)
While much of Deathspell Omega’s catalog is defined by dissonance and fractured rhythms, Apokatastasis Pantôn offers a rare sense of ascent.
Serving as the closing chapter of their theological trilogy, the track carries a sweeping, almost victorious momentum beneath its complexity.
It’s melodic without being comforting, heavy without collapsing into chaos, making it an ideal entry point for listeners approaching the band for the first time.
Deep Cut: Mass Grave Aesthetics (from the 2008 EP of the same name)
Why Them:
The elusive collective Deathspell Omega stands as one of the most influential forces in avant-garde black metal.
Despite their far-reaching impact on the genre, they have maintained strict anonymity and have never performed live.
Their work is dense, confrontational, and intellectually demanding, rewarding listeners willing to engage fully rather than passively consume.
Regarde Les Hommes Tomber – Season of Mist
City: Nantes
Gateway Track: A New Order (Ascension, 2020)
A New Order opens Ascension with absolute authority. The track launches into a relentless black metal barrage before widening into a massive, slow moving midsection that fully embraces the band’s sludge roots.
The shift feels deliberate rather than dramatic, showing how comfortably Regarde Les Hommes Tomber move between speed and weight. It’s cinematic without overkill, brutal without chaos, and the clearest snapshot of their fully realized modern sound.
Deep Cut: Ov Flames, Flesh and Sins (Regarde Les Hommes Tomber 2013)
Pulled from their self-titled debut, Ov Flames, Flesh and Sins leans heavily into the band’s most oppressive instincts.
Stretching past ten minutes, the track crawls forward on punishing low end and sustained tension, favoring atmosphere over velocity.
Compared to the sharper focus and increased pace of their later material, this song feels more grounded, more urban, and deeply claustrophobic.
It’s an essential deep cut that captures the raw foundations of their sound before it evolved into something more expansive and doctrinal.
Why Them:
Regarde Les Hommes Tomber are a defining force in the modern French extreme metal landscape. Their sound fuses the icy tremolo and blast-driven urgency of black metal with the suffocating weight of sludge and post-hardcore.
The band takes its name from the 1994 Jacques Audiard film Regarde les hommes tomber (“Watch the Men Fall”), a fitting reference for music that feels grounded, violent, and uncomfortably human.
Celeste – Nuclear Blast
City: Lyon
Gateway Track: Des Torrents de Coups (Assassine(s) 2022)
This was the lead single for their Nuclear Blast debut and serves as the perfect introduction to their “modern” era. It captures the band’s transition from raw, impenetrable noise to a more structured, cinematic form of aggression.
Deep Cut: De sorte que plus jamais un instant ne soit magique (Morte(s) Née(s) 2010)
If Des Torrents de Coups is the open door, this 13-minute epic is the abyss at the end of the hallway.
Coming from the album often cited as their most claustrophobic and “anti-human,” this track is a marathon of sludge and despair.
Why Them:
Celeste have always sounded like a building collapsing in slow motion, and somehow getting heavier as it falls.
Their jump to Nuclear Blast with Assassine(s) in 2022 wasn’t a sellout moment, it was a pressure test, and the band passed without losing an ounce of suffocation.
What started in the early 2000s Lyon hardcore scene as pure, hostile abrasion has evolved into something more deliberate and cinematic, but still deeply anti-comfort.
They took their blackened sludge out of the basement and into a wider spotlight, and instead of softening the blow, they dragged the darkness with them. This is a band that proves extremity can grow without becoming polite.
France’s metal scene doesn’t resolve itself neatly, and that’s exactly the point. There is no single sound, no unified aesthetic, no safe middle ground. What connects these artists is a shared refusal to dilute intensity, whether that intensity comes through chaos, ideology, atmosphere, groove, or emotional weight.
From Igorrr’s genre demolition to Celeste’s suffocating slow collapse, from Mass Hysteria’s physical momentum to Deathspell Omega’s intellectual extremity, this is a scene built on contrast and conviction rather than trends.
Each band pushes against comfort in its own way, and together they form a landscape that is restless, demanding, and constantly evolving.
World Metal Weekly exists to map that terrain without flattening it. France doesn’t just export metal, it challenges how heaviness itself can function. And this edition is proof that the deeper you go, the more uncompromising it becomes.
World Metal Weekly FAQ:
Q: What is World Metal Weekly?
A: A guided tour through the loudest corners of the planet. One country per week, seven bands per stop, zero apologies for subjectivity.
Q: How do we pick the bands?
A: Taste, instinct, and a little chaos. The goal isn’t to chase hype, it’s to shine a light where the sparks are flying, whether anyone’s looking or not.
Q: Do I need a visa or a black-metal passport to follow along?
A: No paperwork required. Just headphones and questionable volume control decisions.
Q: Can bands submit music to be considered?
A: Absolutely. If you think your riffs can disturb the peace of a different continent, reach out. Worst case: we love it. Best case: we love it loudly.
Q: Does Metal Lair have any other weekly series like this?
A: Oh yes. If your appetite isn’t satisfied by one global feast, check out more crom Metal Lair:
- Seven Deadly Songs – our weekly hunt for the seven must-hear new tracks.
- Metalhead Horoscopes – your weekly forecast in riffs, not retrogrades.
- Deep Cuts: Metal’s Hidden Gems – a descent into the vaults where legendary weirdness sleeps.
- A Rip in Time: Women in Metal – A series celebrating the voices, pioneers, and rule-breakers reshaping heavy music’s DNA.
- Metal Legacy Profiles – Deep-dive essays honoring artists who shaped metal’s sound, culture, and philosophy. These aren’t timelines or greatest-hits lists, but examinations of impact, conflict, evolution, and what each figure left behind.
- Ministry of Metal – A satirical authority devoted to the laws, rituals, and unspoken rules of heavy music. Proclamations, decrees, cultural edicts, and metal lore delivered with humor and bite.
More noise. More discovery. More excuses to stay up too late with incredible music.
About the Author
Chris Norris is the voice behind Metal Lair’s global metal coverage, from funeral doom in the north to thrash born in the streets. Known for spotlighting bands before algorithms notice them and for writing with the precision of a scalpel… or a well-sharpened guitar pick. Vinyl collector. Night-shift journalist. Believes heavy music has no borders.