Published: February 22, 2018

netra is a one-man project from France that combines Depressive Black Metal with Trip-Hop and various other musical elements.

 

Formed in 2003 by multi-instrumentalist Steven Le Moan, netra released its first album “Mélancolie Urbaine” in 2010 via Hypnotic Dirge Records. After relocating in the city of Gjøvik, Norway, he released his second record “Sørbyen”. In 2013 Steven Le Moan collaborated with Californian Rap duo We’r...

Published: January 5, 2018

New Year's Eve. A gathering with family and friends. New resolutions and hopes for tomorrow. The beautiful lights and playful party music. Reality kicks in in the form of a hangover. Maybe you're alone or you feel like your dreams will eventually succumb to your fears. Wait, no, no. You're fine. Everything is fine… Ah, fuck it.

How hard can it be to get some peace of mind? 

How bad do you want to leave this life behind?

The harrowing scre...

Published: May 17, 2017

Oh my gosh, the grandmaster of trip hop black metal is back! From all strange black metal fusions I've heard, this project is by far the best. The all-rounder Steven Le Moan has a vision and the aptitude to effectuate it. The result is a gorgeous combination of many different styles. As a preliminary point I have to declare that you should be compatible with electronic music, otherwise you don't take delight in "Ingrats"....

Published: June 9, 2017

A few days ago I stumbled across a record label called Hypnotic Dirge Records on Bandcamp. It is a label focusing on underground experimental/atmospheric Doom and Black Metal bands. All the albums on the label are available for free download on Bandcamp (an opportunity which I used to full capacity).

One of the most interesting artists on the label is French Avantgarde Metal band/one man project netra. His music is unlike anything I’ve...

Published: May 1, 2017

Netra returns and delivers us a third album to ponder about. On ‘Ingrats’ we see Netra further developing its niche. And I mean niche in the strictest way possible. Netra specialises in combining black metal with triphop, jazz, industrial, ambient and whatever pops up in the creators mind. Netra does have the capacities to execute this in a way that the songs feels natural. Not just a mere compilation of genres. ‘Ingrats’ feels mo...

Published: May 1, 2017

Original Link

*Italian version of the review can be found here

Published: April 3, 2017 

One-man outfit Netra returns after five years to unleash the very unique “Ingrats”. Mixing Industrial/Trip-hop/jazzy elements with Black Metal, this release delivers nearly 40 minutes of exciting Avant-garde music. As with the previous Netra releases, this one will keep you at the edge of your seat always wondering what kind of surprises the songs have in store for the listener.

Opening with the mysteriously jazzy “Gimme a Br...

Published: April 5, 2017 

One of the most innovative albums I have ever heard was Netra’s “Sørbyen” (2012), a bleak and atmospheric album with the unusual and effective inclusion of trip-hop. The urban street feel of that album features on the artwork of this one.

“Ingrats” is an oddball album. The short opening sequence sets the scene with its gloomy and jazzy tempo. The mood turns to violence with the harsh thrash black metal of “Everything’s Fine�...

Published: March 29, 2017

Back in the 1990’s, when underground Metal was becoming a little bit more on the map we had to go to a record store, sometimes in a dark basement of a bad neighborhood to get our fix of DarkThrone, Mayhem, and Ildjarn. Now that Black Metal is as easy to get as a burger and fries at any corner many bands and one man bands have been pushing the limits of genre crossing with Folk, Shoegaze, etc.

French act Netra blends Black Meta...

Published: March 23, 2017

It’s been four and a half, five years since Netra released Sørbyen, seven years since Mélancolie Urbaine, and in some ways nothing has changed. Netra is still one man, playing a strange mixture of black metal, trip-hop, ambient, and a few other things. In some ways everything has changed.

Nothing ever felt forced with the first two albums, but on Ingrats everything feels like it belongs together even more. The songwriting has impr...

Published: March 20, 2017

Listening to this album for the first time is truly a rewarding experience. This may not be the first time that a black metal band injects electronic element into the music. Many have tried but failed miserably. Not to mention that the very idea of blending the two together is a lot less appealing to the purist crowd. Although this is not my first ever exposure to Netra, I can say that I am still pretty much surprised upon listening to I...

Published: March 18, 2017

The perfect soundtrack for late-night walks in the city, combining several different music genres into a coherent stream of melancholy, might be right in front of your eyes thanks to this exquisite Urban Black Metal one-man project.

Conveying images of a grey, boring and anxiogenic city life, Urban Black Metal one-man project netra is back with its third full-length album, titled Ingrats (which is French for “ungrateful”), th...

Published: March 14, 2017

From Ingrats’ opening jazzy piano and drum duo on “Gimme a break,” it’s apparent that one-man experimental black metal project netra is taking on the genre from a more sophisticated headspace than the torch-bearing, forest-wandering forefathers of the genre. It’s easy to connect the dots to more progressive-leaning artists like Ulver or Altar of Plagues, and to a lesser degree, Norway’s Shining, but those comparisons f...

Published: February 27, 2017 

Norway’s Netra captures the monotonous dreariness of city life, giving a completely new twist on multiple genres. Favoring interesting arrangements over riding on the novelty of its approach makes “Ingrates” the project’s most consistent record to date.

COMPELLING MELODRAMA

Consisting of French musician Steven Le Moan, Netra uses depressive black metal as a springboard into various shades of dark ambient, darkwav...

Published: March 6, 2017 

What I Like: I almost passed this one over originally, as I was not a fan of the band's opening single "Everything's Fine."  This was a lesson in not being too hasty, because this track does little to indicate what to expect from Ingrats as a whole.  While this opener provides a relatively traditional approach to noisy, atmospheric black metal; the majority of these tracks tread much more heavily into the industrial and drone genres.  ...

Published: February 28, 2017

Add to the classification scheme that of “urban black metal.” The French one man black metal project netra has been engaging in this category for two previous full-length albums, and Ingrats marks the third collaboration with the eccentric label Hypnotic Dirge (seemingly a perfect fit for this act). While in describing netra’s sound, the kitchen sink analogy works but what’s stranger is how well it all sits together in the f...

Published: February 10, 2017

Netra  are  a  band  originally from  France  but  now  re-located  to  Norway  and  plays  a  mixture  of  depressive  black  metal,  trip  hop  and  ambient  and  this  is  a  review  of  their  2017  album  "Ingrats"  which  will  be  released  in  March  by  Hypnotic  Dirge  Records.

 Trip  hop  sounds  start  off  the  album  along  with  some  keyboards  that  add  in  a  touch  of  jazz  and  after  the  intro  the  m...