Malevolentia is a French orchestral extreme metal band native of Belfort founded in 2003. The previous album “Ex Oblivion” was apparently quite successful and popular in their country. But their latest outing seems to be all about pushing the boundaries of their prior work. République's concept was to build a movie soundtrack fused with black metal agression; one that tells an Orwellian fable from a film that does not exhist. Well, I'm always down for some dramatic, symphonic BM; and the fact that it happens to be fronted by one badass women is just an added bonus.

Indeed, the lady 'Spleen' is quite terrifying. Even corpse-paint and deadly gaze aside, her throat-wrenching vocals are sincere in their desire to seep deep into your brain and rot out the inside of your skull. This ain't about being pretty, and it ain't about having a lovely singing voice; it's all about ferocousness. There's a certain rampancy to her performance that serves to add to the already milky layers of melodrama in the atmosphere, not to mention the trademark squelch in her tone that is just unearthly.

I think that given the opportunity, fans of palatable extreme symphonic bands like Septicflesh and Dimmu Borgir will flock to this like moths to the flame. The horns on "Nocte & Nebula" were even giving me direct flashbacks to the awesome power of albums like The Great Mass and Death Cult Armageddon. It's the kind of black metal that really should be represented in a gigantic Broadway musical, or with full orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

What else can I say? Do you like powerful, driving double bass and snare hits that echo as if recorded in a stadium? How about gigantic string, wind, and choir arrangements that give the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings a run for its money? Maybe some furious, chaotic tremolo a la Cradle of Filth? If you answered all of the above, you should probably have stopped ready a while ago and just started listening.