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I've been getting a good number of albums from French black metal bands lately, and I must say they've all been of very good quality, though admittedly hovering mostly around the sounds of that scene from the late '90s to the mid 2000s or so. But wait! Chaînes is actually from Belgium, but they also sound a lot like French black metal bands, and not only because of language. Their black metal is melodic, even kind of catchy here and there, but can also get quite fast and brutal. They're roughly halfway between the most melodic and the rawer bands circa 2000, expertly mixing the various schools of French black metal, even to some extent the rawest ones like the Black Legions and others of that ilk. I like how they balanced aggressive, in-your-face compositions with some that are way more melodic and a little melancholic; this all flows together without skipping a beat. Nothing especially new here if you listened to French black metal some 20+ years ago, but Chaînes do it right and Les litanies des chaînes is one of those albums that gets better the more you listen to it. It's been a while since I heard black metal out of Belgium, and hopefully this is a sign of more good things to come from that country's scene.