Peste Noire (2013)

(Unless otherwise indicated, lyrics were translated by M. D. L. & L’Atrabilaire, courtesy of La mesnie Herlequin.)

Go here for translations of the other Peste Noire albums.

Le retour de la peste [The Return of the Plague]

Voice 1: ‘It is not France that has been beaten, neither is it the French people, it’s the bunch of bastard * and capitalists that ruled us!’

Voice 2: ‘Truth is in combat, in total sacrifice…’

Famine:
‘In this hour we need to redeem ourselves
We need to redeem ourselves honourably.
If we really want PN,
To remain PN.’

Voice 3: ‘We have in this hour a need to redeem ourselves, we must redeem ourselves honourably if we really want, we Frenchmen, to remain French.’

Voice 4: ‘We will give the astonished world the example of a renaissance that exceeds in grandeur all that has passed in our History’

Voice 5: ‘If France wants to remain a European and world power, if France wants to be worthy of Europe…’

Voice 5: ‘Let France follow us without hesitation, it is the path of salvation, it is that which will restore honour and freedom to our country.’

Voice 6: ‘In the name of France and even if France did not give her consent yet and even if France does not yet fully understand it, the Legion of Volunteers is now taking in her name a magnificent mortgage on the future.’

Voice 4: ‘My friends, Europe is on the march, nothing can stop it!’

Démonarque [Demonarch]

This text is inspired by the Crusade song El temps cant vei cazer fòlhas e flors from the thirteenth century troubadour Gauceran de Saint-Leidier hailing from the Bishopric of Velay.

At the time when flowers and leaves fall
And the sparrows twist in the wind
That buffets them upside-down
Leaving them dishevelled, stunned and hopeless,
Similarly, our new masters have put
Wisdom, Honour and Loyalty and Race
In the dustbins of the Republic of bastards…
And before us lie the dark
Ruins of our dead forefathers which reflect
The great majesty of our History,
And if we remembered the great love
That they dedicated to the glory of France,
Perhaps there would be more Crusaders!

Accordion: Ardraos

Who would take up arms
So that the traitors in tears
Swiftly leave our country
Since they proved themselves unworthy
Of its glory

May the scum start to quake
At the sight of our men in arms
Ready to fill the ranks
Of valiant folk and heroes!

Ah, who would like to recover the sense
And the worth
Shall enter the occupied areas of France
And start beef!

With Audrey:
Ah, who would give a bloody nose
To these parasites
May he now join
Our militia!

Flute: Antumnos
Hurdy Gurdy: L’Atrabilaire

Ravenlord (in Swedish):
‘I’m a fighter, I’m a soldier,
So I have lived and so I’ll die
I have held the frontline, have held out with young and old alike.
The same ideas and the same goals.
Our swords and axes sharpened into enemy bodies
Our muscles glisten of blood and sweat
We fight for those who died for our cause
We live for battle. Our vision appears clear’

Oh, let’s follow the Demonarch
Because bitterness and fury
Will steady his bow
To shoot the thieves!

With Audrey:
Let us follow the King Anarch
He will purge the Hexagon
Of its imposters
With an assault rifle.

La bêche et l’épée contre l’usurier [The Spade and the Sword against the Usurer]

They poisoned our wells
They killed our children
They lent to the small
To make them their servants.

What has changed today?
Vaccines, abortions,
Usury, credit,
Used to kill us slowly

What has changed today?
What has actually changed?

With Audrey:
The absence, yes the absence
Of Bold princes!

…………[HOT WATER]………….
[Includes an excerpt of Geoffrey of Paris (Geoffroi de Paris)’s Rhymed Chronicle (early 14th century).]

It’s the urgency of pilgrimage.
Go! Hit them! Fuck them all up!
In Paris create a huge carnage
Cagots, Lepers, ליברגה… same treatment for all!
We are the wolves
We are the birds of prey
The homicidal predators.
Wherever we tarry we harry
No matter what his
Divine majesty thinks!
From Saintonge to Perigord,
We’ll put it in your perineum,
Cause your body to breathe its last
From the Garonne to the Pyrenees.

Look at my France
At what it’s become
It’s all rancid
Since you came back:
An hospital zoo
A psychiatric ward
This is all that’s left
Of my country.

Man’s voice: ‘SOL, be upstanding! Out of the deepest depths of his people, flesh of his flesh, you will have the honour of serving, to serve each day, unseen, in the daily work of French recovery, perhaps to give your blood, your life, with the only reward being the joy of having served. On your knees!’

Niquez vos villes [Go Fuck your Towns!]

I’ve had my share of hangovers
Of fights and white nights
In this Medieval city gradually
Mutated into an unstable council estate
Farewell my ramparts,
Cheerio dear gargoyles,
I’ll leave you to the םיריזח
And to the gutter punks…

Haute-Loire, here I come!

Swedish dialogue between Ravenlord and Melkor

F for Fist
F for France
F for Famine
A nutjob rooster who’ll fuck you and BANG!
I’ll punch a hole in your whole family,
With my dick, with a pick, with a carbine,
And on amphetamines.
At the same time as I ransack your cities,
Ruin your daughters
I’ll harass
All the bohos
All the bonobos
All the hoodies from the ghettos.

Your trendy new Samsung
We’ll shove it up your arse
You’ll utter a final cry
And never come back…

Trumpet and bugle: Lazareth
Lituus and carnyx: Veurmin

Return to the Stone Age
Disasters loom ahead
We’ll no longer find beer
Or venison in our stores
But in this chaos
A wonderful horizon is given to us:
We will feast on men,
And force their big whores to their knees

One — don’t lecture me
Two — when I’ll be tanning in my combe
You — will take a double anal
By — Morocco and Senegal
Three — welcome the Congolese
Four — who’ll cut your throat
Five — you shouldn’t have called him “bro”
Six — and slagged the police off

I represent the cream of well hung BM
Look who’s singing
Look who’s singing
Look who’s singing
On my disc:

Ukrainian singing: R

Le clebs noir de Pontgibaud  [The black hound of Pontgibaud]

1470
Your father is at the stake
A black dog will come, my son
Allowing you to take revenge

He’ll growl to you that in the cemetery
Is left a bunch of bones
In the fire, grind them into dust
It will kill the men subtly…

Cello: Pire

And through blowing the ashes on you
It will arm your hand
With a club to kill
Every person that you will come across.

Once night has fallen
To La Garde you will go
In the midst of a great fire
A giant will emerge

Dunkel:
Astride a donkey
He will hand a candle to you
And in front of La Mesnie
Proudly, you will set it aflame

With Dunkel:
All the company
You’ll greet
Will see fairies
Of Banières, of Chambois.

Always with Dunkel:
There! There! There!
Make a pact my boy!
Go! Go!
Down to Hell!
Do! Do!
Cock a snook at God!

Lord Arwen sings with the text of Gothmog
The Arrest:
‘In vain around me, they roar their
Prayers; tormenting my soul with their
inhuman-looking deformed features. In
vain I beg the stone that protects me to
take my heart away from the flames which
they had lit for it… In vain around me, they
belch their imprecations; Submitting
my flesh to the cold bite of their irons.’

Ode

R. (in Ukrainian):
‘Along that river, in a field,
A darksome mound is seen;
Where once the Cossack life-blood flowed.
The grass is bright and green.
A raven perches on the mound,
And caws from hunger’s pain…
A Cossack dreams of Hetmans’ days.
And sheds his tears again!’

Hurdy Gurdy: L’Atrabilaire

(Excerpt from the poem ‘The night of Taras’ by Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), St. Petersburg, 1838)

Translated by C.H Andrusyshen and Watson Kirkconnell

La Blonde [The Blonde]

She doesn’t chat too much, leaves me be,
She’s easy going
Leaves no trace of plonk
With her little pussy
Open-mouthed but silent 24/7
She’s what I call a good time! (with Khrass)
She isn’t jealous
Her friends are 12
You can even find 24 of them
If you want a great big orgy! (with Khrass)
The Blonde! (with Khrass)
She doesn’t ask for marriage
The Blonde! (with Khrass)
Tonight she won’t have a headache
Heineken, Goudal or Rosko we don’t give…
A fuck, mate…
Pat Fab Dunkel, let’s meet at the 3B
You don’t invite her to the restaurant
No it’s her who feeds you
Not with water
But with golden-coloured barley.

The Blonde (Audrey):
‘I’m fresh like a child
Sparkling and wet
If you don’t get me in a shop but in a mug
I’ll make your wallet ache!’

The Blonde!
Brew and food of our ancestors
Your barley grows where it rains without end
The Blonde!
Drink of choice for the Gauls and the Celts
You flow in our blood and bladders!

The Blonde
She makes me aggressive
Like Ayyash in front of a kibbutz
She’s responsible if
I’ve got your teeth under my combat boots.
The more I drink the more I piss my lad,
Like a mutt against the shops
I could take on 10 fuckers
Really she makes me crazy…
And… it’s recording now? Ok, and…(not in the initial lyrics, recorded drunk)
And even if she makes me drive on the left
And even if she has fried all my neurons
And even if she sometimes makes me hang out with ugly leftists,
God knows how this blonde
Has re-enchanted my life.

Moins trente degrés Celsius [Minus thirty degrees Celsius]

Cello: Pire

Ravenlord (in Swedish):
‘Onward we progress in these dark times but it gets brighter the further time goes on
I see the moonlight in your eyes and it fills me with courage.
Your gaze is serious, resolute
The crust is dark blue and crunching under your skis
It snaps in the trees – who watched us?
No cry have we heard, no response, have we seen
You and I are the only warmth here
…Dear shadow.’

The frost creeps down to the very bones,
And want creeps in through the walls and stones :
Yea, snow and want round the souls creep close,
The heavy snow diaphanous
Round the stone-cold hearths and the flameless souls
That wither away in their huts and holes.
The hamlets bare
White, white as Death lie yonder, where
The crooked roadways cross and halt’

From the poem The Snow by Emile Verhaeren.

Translated by Alma Strettell

EXTRA:

The following track is featured on the split with Diapsiquir. Watch the accompanying music video here.

Dans ma nuit [In my night]

In my night
Harsh, glazed and stinking, full of wolf dens where it rains
Showers of ploughshares, downpours of lead shot and woe
In my night where it rains
O my unlucky star
Magenta-blue hued
You came to weave your web
Bathed in misshapen purple lights
Born from half-life.

In my night
Black, perpetual and dense
In this damn
Auditorium of Le Thor
I tasted your dance
Golden brown horse
As strong as my future
Addiction.

In our nights
Of Frigolet
The Abbey
Resounded
With our devilries
And Neige dissolved
In the light of your artifice
And your lies.

Psychiatry…
A new night
My only friends
Some mongoloids
Who howl like babes
Like the songs which beckon us
All to quickly
Fade…

Psychiatry…
A new night
It’s here
That you left me
Well, yeah!
In my nights
In my night…
In my… life.

In my night
I’ve been here at least
Thirty one years
Where I’ve been sweating
Where I’ve been scorning
Where I’ve been sucking
Like a dog
That rotten bone
Tasting like Suze
So poisonous
So bitter
And foul
Tasting of shit
Of melancholy.
And it’s not even your fault
Old friend
If in your bullshit existence
I’m like a dissonance
A hit-and-run in my labyrinthine night
Caught up by my genetic plight
Searching without GPS for your daylight
But as always
Caught for exceeding the spleen limit…
Dragged over to the verge of the road
Head smashed in
Like my dad on his bike
That ugly summer.

Le rat de ville et le rat des champs [The town rat and the country rat]

(by Jean de la Fontaine, taken from Fables (1668))

A rat from town, a country rat
Invited in the civilest way;
For dinner there was just to be
Ortolans and an entrement.

Upon a Turkey carpet soft
The noble feast at last was spread;
I leave you pretty well to guess
The merry, pleasant life they led.

Gay the repast, for plenty reigned,
Nothing was wanting to the fare;
But hardly had it well begun
Ere chance disturbed the friendly pair.

A sudden racket at the door
Alarmed them, and they made retreat;
The city rat was not the last,
His comrade followed fast and fleet.

The noise soon over, they returned,
As rats on such occasions do;
“Come,” said the liberal citizen,
“And let us finish our ragout.”

“Not a crumb more,” the rustic said;
“Tomorrow you shall dine with me;
Don’t think me jealous of your state,
Or all your royal luxury;

But then I eat so quiet at home,
And nothing dangerous is near;
Good-bye, my friend, I have no love
For pleasure when it’s mixed with fear.”

Translated by Walter Thornbury.