New mini-album, “Fragile”, out now!
Somewhere between the cinematic dynamics of post-rock and the physical weight of metal, French instrumental trio AVALANCHES has found its own gravitational pull.
Formed in Nantes by David Poiraudeau (guitar), Guillaume Pastemps (drums) and Nicolas Bertrand (bass), AVALANCHES builds instrumental music around contrast: crushing riffs against suspended melodies, progressive structures against immediate hooks, aggression against restraint.
Think Russian Circles colliding with the progressive weight of The Ocean and Mastodon — with flashes of Tool, Deftones and Caspian — but without becoming another exercise in instrumental technicality.
Because heaviness is only half the story.
At the heart of AVALANCHES lies a fascination with things that appear permanent until suddenly they aren’t. Structures. Landscapes. Planets. Certainties.
‘Their debut EP Megalithe’ introduced that idea through the impossible image of a colossal mass suspended in space: something simultaneously beautiful, absurd and threatening.
With ‘Fragile’, AVALANCHES pushes the concept further. What appears immutable can fracture. What looks permanent can collapse. And what sounds overwhelmingly heavy can reveal something unexpectedly vulnerable underneath.
That tension runs directly through the band’s music : heavy without being relentlessly brutal. Progressive without disappearing into technical excess. Cinematic without becoming background music.
The band sits in the space between post-rock contemplation and metal impact — and seems perfectly comfortable making that space considerably louder.
