From the chilling woods of Montreal, Quebec comes the five-person experience known as Sanguine Glacialis. Helmed by modern day scream queen, growler and operatic virtuoso Maude Théberge they’ve experimented on two albums, Dancing With A Hanged Man and their Pitch Black Sight EP, along with recent release 2018’s Hadopelagic. They’ve brought all manner of influence, slamming together uncomfortable bed fellows like jazz, classical, and swing music into the unsuspecting mosh pit, bringing new meaning to slam dancing.
Sanguine Glacialis (Sangween-e Glassialis) translates to Frozen Blood in Latin, with similar meanings in French and English. While Théberge provides the regal pipes and keys bassist Marc Gervais, guitarists Jonathan Fontaine and Rémi LeGresley and drummer David Gagné-Pavy provide the ear triggering surround sound.
Each song represents a customized slew of influences and ideas, mixed and poured from an inspirational molten Mulligan stew of what’s next.
Hadopelagic blasts loud like a beast, literary. Whether it’s the guitars, drums or Théberge’s guttural roar bashing against the ear like deadly vast waves, smashed with lethal devastating power and force by the talon s of the sea beast. The album delivers a mighty seas tale among other lyrical tragedies as Théberge likes to go a bit haunted and dark with the pen, in two languages.
Lyrically most songs are in English with some French lines, then a few all in French. “French is my first language, English is my second. It’s natural for me to write in my first language as well.”
They appeal to two audiences, “We have a couple songs totally in English, somewhat in French,” Théberge explains. “A lot of them are mixed in between. I’m from Montreal, a bilingual city. French’s been my first language since I was born. English was a very big part of growing up in Montreal. It was normal for me to do something in both languages.”
Hadopelagic is the deepest trench in the ocean with head crushing pressure. Making narrative sense that it would be home to the thing that should not be along with other unseen horrors, we hope never feel open air.
The cover of the album is the ship encountering the Kraken as it’s slowly coiled, wrapped and pulled under. “There’s a song called Kraken as well, the last music video we released a couple weeks ago. It connects to the cover.”
A stand up bass is used in the video, signaling a rare appearance in a death metal video but goes with their sound-bending death metal mission statement bringing new sounds to seasoned growl-filled ears. Théberge assured electric bass is played on record though the stand up model’s a cool prop. “It’s a cool visual. We like to do different.”
Sadly, they won’t use it live. It’d be cool if they played it for that one song. “I don’t think my bassist would like it, it’s not the same technique. There’s no frets not sure he’d be able to.”
Certain camera angels give a portal effect, like you’re watching everything from outside on deck as the ship rocks back and forth to its fate, waiting in the sea. “When you see the sea and the Kraken outside, you know the boat is doomed. We tried to make it look in the style of the Titanic.”
The crowd was all friends and family. “The female is the lead singer in my other band Valfeya. She’s pretty much my best friend. It was natural to have her do this. We have our friends, cousins there. They were all amazing at their roles but mostly improvised.”
Formed in 2009, Valfreya a melodic folk metal band focusing on Nordic themes with Théberge on violin.
So far, all songs and videos use a different pallet of unique ingredients incorporating a different sound twisting and morphing into their version of death metal. “We like to mix jazz and swing, classical and I think that’s what makes us sound how we sound.” Future shows will have the crowd moshing with her slamming down on piano as she peaks and growls.
Almost everything you hear from operatic to guttural comes from her. “There’s a couple vocals the guys did, guitarist Mark and bassist Jonathan.”
She’s practiced the techniques so she can belt out the deep depths and angelic highs side by side. “If I can warm up its better but apart from this, it’s practice. Eventually you get used to it.”
Théberge trained in classical piano. “I’m a trained musician but mostly learned singing through choirs. I did classical jazz choirs, then a couple lessons here and there with metal vocalists. I learned the rest myself. A little bit of everything.”
The music decides the vocal style. “I try to make the vocal part fit with the music. Decide what I’m doing then write the lyrics.”
The first song “Aenigma” opens with backwards lyrics in Latin. The passages are taken from her grandfather’s church book. “He had a small church book. In Quebec, back in the ‘50s and‘60s, church services were still in Latin. My grandfather had this book with Latin transcriptions so I took bits and pieces from that to write. It’s very interesting.”
Théberge mostly writes from stories in her head. Personal experiences spelled out into stories, focused on other emotions and ways to express them.
She’s been diagnosed with mental health issues. So she’s akin to producing dark, evil, twisted subject matter. “I deal with dark thoughts a lot. Writing about them helps me.” Churning out the darkness produces good results and interesting content.
“Funeral for Inner Ashes” is arguably the records best marriage of piano and death growls. “I really like this song. There’s been a lot of changes to it throughout the years. I really like the latest version. It’s a really dark, melodic death metal beginning, very soft ending. I really like both mixed together.”
The video for “Monsters” chronicles a night of bad decisions. “Pretty much, it’s talking about literal monsters in your nightmares. But we know that everyday monsters are not necessarily real monsters. They can be bad addictions, bad decisions. The video’s mostly about it.”
There’s a guttural sounding horn effect at the end. “I write all the orchestration and there were brass strings as well as growls. It’s a loud instrument so it sounded really loud and massive. When you have horns in music, it has that punch, like the bass drum. The blast beats of classical.”
“Into the Heart of Chaos” from their first record, was their first video, and being Canadian, they filmed in the middle of winter, in minus 35 degree weather. “All the (group) shots you see are like five seconds because we couldn’t stay more than five seconds with our coats off.” Every five-ten seconds they had to cut with friends rushing in to warm them up. After they stopped shivering, the covers came off, and the camera rolled for another fast shot. All shot in the same day.” It was way too cold but a very memorable and intense experience.
The pictures in the tree were old photographs of Théberge’s family. “My mother kept them, all these photographs, century old. I added a couple in the tree, trying to make it creepy.”
She hasn’t done a song with all growls or cleans yet but “Into the Heart of Chaos” is mostly clean with only background growls, not hers. “I just go with what I hear. I listen to the riff and the whole song then match the vocal with what I think will fit the music the best.”
Most people she meets that aren’t metalheads are shocked that she growls as well, “I tell them, I growl, they say, how can you do this? They’re pretty amazed by it.”
She found early inspiration in classic Cannibal Corpse and Six Feet Under songs. “I’m a good growler, but my voice is way too high to be able to sound like those guys. They’re voice is so low, so their growl is low. There’s no way I can reach that, I’m not built for it.”
Inspiration for Dancing With a Hanged Man was based on their Alice in Wonderland song. “We wanted to do Alice. You can see it on the cover. We just thought creepy trees looked really cool. The guy that drew the picture helped out with that style, mainly a mix of inspiration from the song and help with things we thought looked cool. Like an evil nursery rhythm.”
They’re holding off on shows till 2022. “It’s too risky to book with different waves of Covid. You never know when it could shut down again.” Though she says Montreal has a huge metal scene. The biggest in Canada where there was always a show, pre-pandemic.
They’ve played mostly Quebec, Ontario and along the east coast as well. They haven’t ventured, down south, to the U.S. yet. “It’s not easy with the visas to go to the states. As soon as we can play shows again, we’d like to try something.”
They have a sporadic following in the states. “We have fans in a couple of places. It’s a little bit everywhere. I’m guessing closer to Quebec.”
Once in the U.S., New York is a touring target due to proximity. Though going far southwest to California and L.A. is a bucket list dream.
Touring in Canada’s not easy, especially with distance. “You have at least six to seven hours minimum between big cities. It can be pretty long crossing country.
When normal, touring resumes they would love to roam the roads with fellow countrymen and women The Agonist and Beyond Creation. “I know members from both, they’re amazing. I think it would be great and we’d fit with them.”
She’s stage jumped a few times. “There’s a few smaller venues in Quebec where I can easily jump in the crowd. The stage is not too high. Once in a while when the crowds not moving too much I like to jump in and mosh people around and see what they do.” At 5’2, she’s small but still holds her own.
They haven’t done festivals yet but have opened some big tours for Dark Tranquility and Carach Angren.
She’s happy more women are using death metal vocals and growls, doing something different in the genre. “It’s great that more women are doing it and they sound amazing. It’s really interesting. A female voice just doesn’t sound like a male voice. It’s nice to have that color of sound of metal. It’s refreshing, I really like it personally.”
When she started growling, it wasn’t as common place as is now. When she saw The Agonist she fell in love with the style. “I absolutely wanted to do this.”
She has talent and job security with both styles, while using her growl to voice video game characters in The Monster Factory. She can’t talk about specific characters she voices though she says they’re a collective of death metal singers and monsters are traditionally villains.
With all members working from home, the next record’s nearing completion. “There’s five people contributing. It’s a pretty long process. We’ve been writing for awhile and almost done. There’s just a couple (songs) left. It won’t be very long. We can’t wait. It’s been three years since our last album.” She says it will be less dark but still very dark with content to be considered.
While we’re still in the beginning of 2021, live music is starting to come back as well as other entertainment. With all the downtime, fans can expect a killer new record and a full-length part three from the northern world of Sanguine Glacialis.
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