"Broken Speech" is the first album of OWL CAVE, a new one-man band in the French extreme musical scene. It took more than three years before releasing this album, between the different stages of composition, then production. The common thread is felt in the form that this piece takes, since the choice was made by the artist to gather the six songs into a single track, thus requiring the listener to listen to the entire album, and in the order the composer wanted...an approach running counter to the main current mode of consumption of music.

The 43-minute track opens with the words "your silence speaks volumes." A weighted, slow moving riff leads the charge. It pauses, then the riff takes on a bending quality with some psychedelic tinges. At the eight-minute mark it picks up in speed and intensity. As expected, the song shifts many times along the way, darting in and out of ambient passages as well as hardened, harrowing Black Metal droneage. At the 12-minute mark, the riff climbs up and down over a bed of galloping drums, then retreats again into the dark, murky waters, bubbling and ready to assault again.

At the 17-minute mark, dissonance rears its head, clamoring over cymbal crashes and thick, meaty bass notes. Rounding the 21-minute mark, we begin to hear effects like phaser in the guitars, which are stuck in the muck and lumbering slowly. Rounding the 25-minute mark, the song begins to march...to Hell...to war. Forces gather and the tension is so thick that it could be cut with a knife. It retreats again at the 30-minute mark, and returns. The final seven minutes are a natural ending to a tale of woe and despair, ending in that one same sound that comes up several times throughout the album.

This was at the very least an interesting Black Metal album, and one that was off the beaten path. Dark, brooding and mysterious, you can hear the natural progressions between the six movements among the entire track. Much of the song is mired in dissonance, and in chords that are disharmonious. But that doesn't make for a bad listen at all...indeed, I found the album gleefully dark, and the production about right where it should be considering the musical content.