Labels : Basement Apes, Enjoyment Records, Imminence Records, Dingleberry records and distribution, BAD MOOD RECORDS, Ashes Cult, Nature Morte & Banshies Records (Reissue)
RIYL : Converge • Every Time I Die • Norma Jean • The Chariot • Will Haven
Maximum Alert – Defcon 0 Engaged – Immediate thermal shock warning.
Alternative/Hardcore/Punk band quartet from France, The Prestige has a new album, and they are not happy. Not at all. Forget, for a moment, the highly recommended ‘Black Mouths’ and brace yourself : ‘Amer’ is a brutal, unrelenting assault: devastating, cathartic, and utterly uncompromising.
From the opening seconds, bitterness drips from every note — and here, that’s a good thing. Tension coils, instruments strike like hammers, and the air turns electric. Then the vocals rip through like lightning, locking the listener into the perfect headspace for what’s to come.
Enter « Bête Noire » Thirty-five seconds of crushing pressure. The band pushes the meters into the red, then pauses just long enough for one breath before unloading everything in a single, visceral outpouring. The result? Total war in the amplifiers — monstrous riffs tearing through the air, leaving no survivors.
Somewhere between Cursed, Converge, and Every Time I Die, The Prestige land a decisive blow. The savagery is neck-breaking, the intensity relentless — and it’s only track two. With eleven tracks of metallic hardcore-punk in total, the pummeling has only just begun.
The lyrics – in unapologetic French – carry feverish, razor-edged urgency. There’s a charisma here that devours the competition, backed by overwhelming firepower (helped by a truly phenomenal production). The Prestige is a sleek, relentless machine, rage embedded deep in its core, transforming everything it touches into gold – or rather, black gold. Very black.
Their music exhales ash (“Léger de main”) while paying visceral tribute to their clear and classy influence, Will Haven (“Voire dire”). But there’s no time to linger – the band charges forward, still eager for confrontation like bands such as COUNTERPARTS, Norma Jean or The Chariot to enlarge the spectrum a bit.
Then comes « Enfants Terribles ». No debate, no escape. The accompanying video amplifies the track’s feral energy, infectious aggression, and blunt-force violence. Behind it all lies substance — lived experience distilled into sound.
Tracks like “Négligée,” « Ingénue » and « Marquée » carry that same narrative weight, as does their 2014’s Cuba tour documentary (‘Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground’ produced by the RSTLSS radio & network), which offers a raw look into daily life and worldview. That reflection seeps into « Apaches » with haunting force.
At this point, superlatives are running dry – yet The Prestige still has more to say, especially when it comes to pure emotion. “Petite mort” brushes the soul, before an ultimate “Cri de cœur” closes the album with one last, bloodstained strike from a band at the height of its craft – the delicate art of emotional and auditory corrosion, devouring the turntable and cannibalizing the speakers.
Between rage and despair, torrential pain and the spark of life, meticulously crafted at The Apiary Studio by Amaury Sauvé (As We Draw, Birds In Row, Lost In Kiev, THOT…), ‘Amer’ stands without compromise — carrying that rare, dangerous quality that marks albums destined for cult status. This isn’t just music. It’s a weapon. And it’s locked, loaded, and waiting.
