Track Premiere: Liquid Flesh – “Tribunal Fantomatique”

French death metallurgists, Liquid Flesh, make their return later this month in a follow-up to their 2020 effort, Chair Liquide. The trio’s newest album, Dolores, follows a conceptual story of the titular character on hallucinogens and what unfolds is a trippy and tumultuous story laden with putrid, plodding death metal. The track, as the band later describes, is an inflection point in the record. The main character’s trip truly begins and with it, the five-minute effort carries a sinister tone rife with mid-tempo riffs, strong groove, and fearsome bellows. It’s enough to scare anyone straight.

In regard to the debuted track and how it fits into the narrative of their newest album, Liquid Flesh states to Decibel, “The album Dolores was conceived as a concept album, and to make it short, tells about a woman’s journey from her daily routine to a chaotic and psychedelic world. Each song was thought of as a scene of this ‘journey,’ and ‘Tribunal Fantomatique’ represents her transition into this strange world. After going through a drug overdose, an ambulance takes the character to a hospital, but in her hallucinating trip, she sees this building as a trial court. As the song title suggests, she faces a surreal trial where she is called to the stand, judged, and condemned, without understanding how she ended up there, or what is really going on around her both physically and intellectually.”

They continue on to say, “We transcribed this musically with riffs that are simple and powerful, but that are intertwined in order to create a repetitive and elusive atmosphere. Progressively the song develops to leave room for something more ethereal, high pitched, and stripped, as to mean by the opposite this transition between these two worlds, from ‘free’ to ‘condemned’. That said, we didn’t want to write a musical story either, and despite this progressive side, the song has its share of catchy moments, which in our opinion, makes it sufficient on its own.”

Listen to an exclusive stream of “Tribunal Fantomatique” now and pre-order a copy of their newest album from Time to Kill Records ahead of its release on May 26.