BONJOUR TRISTESSE have shared ‘Disaster Triumphant’ through AOP Records’ official YouTube channel. The 12:20 title track is the second song revealed from the German atmospheric black metal band’s fifth album, due internationally on November 20 via AOP Records.
The track follows ‘Tomb of Hope,’ which is also available on the label’s channel. On the five-song album, ‘Disaster Triumphant’ occupies the closing position, while ‘Tomb of Hope’ appears third.
According to the announcement distributed by Suspicious Activities PR, founder Nathanael, also of HERETOIR, drew heavily on Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. The album takes its name from their words: ‘The Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant.’
The announcement connects that passage to the Enlightenment’s opposing consequences: its challenge to superstition and religion, and the new constraints imposed on humanity and nature through technological progress, industrial civilization, ideas of human supremacy and mass society. That tension informs the album’s critique of environmental destruction and the civilization responsible for it.
BONJOUR TRISTESSE’s atmospheric black metal draws on grief for the planet and reverence for the natural world. The source describes sadness, anger, alienation and inner emptiness alongside resilience in adversity. The lyrics on Disaster Triumphant also address loss, melancholy, interpersonal feelings and a desire to withdraw from an increasingly chaotic world.
Abismo Black Arts created the album cover, which the announcement says reflects the same ambivalence explored in Dialectic of Enlightenment. The supplied artist photographs are credited to Sarah K.
The album’s running order is ‘The Heights of Despair’ (11:02), ‘At the Mountains of Silence’ (11:45), ‘Tomb of Hope’ (10:22), ‘Lingering in the Twilight of Shadows’ (1:55) and ‘Disaster Triumphant’ (12:20).
