Anatomia FRA: Vulcain

   

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The instinct sometimes leads me towards some really bizarre places. Because of that, I manage to find by accident some hidden realms, buried deep in the underground of many shops.

There was a time, when Metalmind was releasing a shitload of their archival catalog from the 80s / 90s, in form of digipacks. I am thinking of such seminal bands like Wolf Spider, Dragon, Destroyers, or Stos. These releases had its unique design, and I have a hunch that Season of Mist must have taken notes, as it looks as if they wanted to do something similar, which would showcase the strength of the French scene. The first choice ended up being Vulcain, unknown veterans from France.

But something probably went wrong, as while there was a box set collecting full discography of said band, only their debut album (OP pic) was released separately and is still more-or-less avalaible cheaply. I also haven't seen any other forgotten crews from the days long gone re-released by S.O.M. As such, Vulcain is the only souvenir of a different era.

The band was quite old, and was active (with small breaks) for 40 years, from 1981 to 2021, until the age started catching up with the members. They played of course, good ole Speed / Heavy Metal, heavily inspired by Motorhead (how else). Yeah, you can hear the leather 'n' spikes and motorbikes, on full throttle.

Interestingly enough, vocals could be classified as proto-growl, as it's much deeper than your usual Lemmy copycat, and reminds me of the early Brazilian scene. Overall, for a Rock 'n' Roll band, the music reeks of brimstone and is quite extreme. Lirycal topics (barked in native language) bring Thrash Metal to mind, albeit they were probably inspired by Punk. Combining this all with the fact that their debut was released in 1984, makes this one-of-a-kind rarity, not only for historians.

There's also a bad news - none of their subsequent albums come even close to their first one. An educated guess makes me think that the band, like many others back then, wasn't playing extreme music on purpose, but due to technical difficulties, and was trying to "improve" their sound with each release, which ironically was killing that "thing" that made them cult in the first place.

Looking at Francje in the bigger picture, one can't help but think about the reasons, that its scene never really reached the wider conscience, despite the huge amount of bands, which put France in the top - nearly 7K of various groups (as per Metal-Archives), while Sweden itself barely has a little above 6K. Not many countries can beat the French score, mostly Germans and USA, but the latter should be analyzed differently. I doubt it's a matter of quality, maybe lack of proper exposure and promoting?

Are they worth trying? Well, would I write about them if they weren't? Start your bike, go on a trip, and blast some Vulcain, it's summer after all.