There is nothing pleasant about this whatsoever, and nor is it designed to be. This is not music to listen to gently in the afternoon as pleasant background to calm the children, but rather is a dystopian metallic nightmare to be played on headphones incredibly loudly as images of the forthcoming apocalypse flash before your eyes. It is music designed to unsettle, to make the listener actually think and feel, and to generate an immediate emotional response, although that in itself my not be a pleasant one. After various stints in hardcore punk bands, Non Serviam (derived from the Latin expression meaning “I will not serve” and traditionally attributed to Lucifer) was born in the early 2000’s in the south of France as a one-man electro and noise project by a hermit and then-undiagnosed autistic musician. Over the years new members have been added, including a musician with baroque training whose instruments (harpsichord, spinet, organ) and a musical culture made of obstinate basses and improvisation by diminutions have been regularly added since 2018.

The result is music which brings together such diverse influences as doom, sludge and black metal as well as shoegazing, drone and noise, which means they can shift a 200 BPM breakbeat to a demonic and very slowed down sludge. There are clear wonderful female vocals that are almost choral in their approach against male vocals which are almost spoken, and underneath there is instrumentation which has no right whatsoever to exist in the same space but somehow does. This is Gridfailure played by a black metal band, Hawkwind being taken into an alternative universe, Darkthrone being subjugating to some strange and compelling force. This is not easy music to listen to, it is harsh and uncompromising, and it will be too much for those who want it to be served to them on a platter. If you want your music to be at the very edge, a soundtrack in black and white for a world of horrors, then this is for you.

Rating: 7/10

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/NonServiamCircle/
https://www.auralmusic.com/