Maybe France is not the first country which comes to mind while speaking about Black Metal, nevertheless well known and / or outstanding bands such as Mütiilation, Antaeus, Osculum Infame or Gorgon, Vlad Tepes (and other "Les Légions Noires"-bands) are or were based there. By the way, there is an very interesting documentation called "Bleu Blanc Satan" about French black metal including deeper insights in the minds of some of the protagonists.
Bovary from France are often labelled as Depressive Black Metal or "DSBM" ("Depressive suicidal black metal"). Let me go back a bit further, to be honest I never was very attracted by the subgenre called Depressive Black metal or bands labelling themselves using the acronym "DSBM". Yes, I like some records by Shining and sometimes I listen to Wigrid (which surprisingly came back from the dead and released a third full length last year), but in general I was relatively bored by the always same mixture of slowly or mid-tempo orientated black metal combined with pictures and covers of knives cutting into own flesh or people who hung themselves etc. Often "DSBM" was used to cover up the lack of musical abilities and ideas of the bands concerned.
Of course there are or were highly innovative bands such as Bethlehem or Forgotten Woods which often served as some kind of blueprint for a lot of this so-called "DSBM" - groups, Shining for example were heavily influenced by Bethlehem (and as a result, Niklas Kavarforth contributed vocals to the re-recorded version of S.U.Z.I.D., which , by the way, wasn't very appreciated by the most fans of Bethlehem). But these bands played in their own league and had little to nothing in common with all these countless bad copycats.
You can get some deeper insights into some bands microcosms by reading the newest book of Dayal Patterson "Black Metal: Into the abyss", in which bands who are associated with the term DSBM such as Hypothermia, Nocturnal Depression, Deinonychus, Trist, Psychonaut 4 and the already mentioned Forgotten Woods are featured amongst other black metal acts.
Maybe one reason for the strong unfiltered emotions which are expressed in this recording is the young age of the three musicians, youth is an period in life where emotions and views are often expressed unfiltered and in an direct way with an "with us or against us"-attitude, so to speak "friend or enemy" with nothing in between. Of course Bovary's music contains these unfiltered depressive and melancholic atmosphere or "attitute", but it's much more than that, it contains sad, captivating melodies and good song structures- I personally would have welcomed if the band would have used more often faster and "ordinary" black metal structures for varying their sound image. To sum up, if you like your metal more introspective and sad and if you're into bands such as Deinonychus, Bonjour Tristesse, Shining or Wigrid you should listen to Bovary immediately.
