Bandcamp Bleak Mountains was recorded live at Le Grand Mix in Tourcoing in April 2025, and you can hear the room. Not in the polished “we recorded to tape for warmth” sense that some bands use as marketing, but in the actual bleed between instruments, the way the guitar tone shifts when the drummer hits harder, the small imperfections that a studio would clean out and that a live recording preserves because they are part of the sound.
Myar are from Lille, and this is their debut. Six tracks in 36 minutes, self-released on limited eco vinyl (300 copies), mixed and mastered by Charly Millioz at Bora Lustral Studio. The band describe it as “a ritual of distortion, fire and shadow,” and while that could describe half the stoner doom records released this year, the live recording gives this one a texture that separates it from the pack.
“As a Line” opens at seven and a half minutes, the longest track, building through a slow-burn intro into a fuzz-drenched riff that arrives around the three-minute mark and stays. The tempo is unhurried, the groove locked in, the bass providing a rumble underneath that the guitar rides rather than competes with. “Ham Pie” pushes past eight minutes with a hypnotic quality, the riff cycling through variations that shift the mood without changing the fundamental pattern.
The shorter tracks work as counterpoints. “Endlessly on Standby” runs just over four minutes with a directness that the longer pieces deliberately avoid. “Mother,” co-written with Fantin Carpentier, closes the album with the closest thing to vulnerability on the record, the title carrying weight that the instrumental arrangement earns through restraint rather than bombast.
“Nothing” sits at the album’s centre, six minutes that live up to the title by stripping the arrangement to its essentials and letting the fuzz do the talking. It is the track where the live recording pays off most clearly: you can hear the band listening to each other, the dynamics responding to the room rather than to a click track.
The production is raw and room-driven, reflecting the live recording at Le Grand Mix. The mid-range carries thick fuzz with a balanced spectral focus, the distortion dense but retaining enough definition for the riff work to read clearly. The bass frequencies are heavy and present, filling the low end with the physical weight that stoner doom requires. The tempo sits in a mid-paced groove, unhurried and deliberate. Charly Millioz’s mix preserves the live dynamics, and the overall loudness is pushed without crushing the room sound that gives the record its character.
Standout tracks: “As a Line” for the seven-minute opener where the live sound and the riff writing converge. “Nothing” for the stripped-back centre that proves less is more when the fuzz is this good. “Ham Pie” for the eight-minute hypnotic ride.
A debut recorded live, self-released on 300 copies of eco vinyl, from a band in Lille. Bleak Mountains does not have the production budget or the label backing of bigger stoner doom records, and it does not need them. The room, the fuzz, and the riffs are enough. Everything else is overhead.
