Produced by Carnival in Coal's Axel Wursthorn, _France_ immediately boasts a connection with musical oddity. I never got into what I heard of Carnival in Coal's efforts, so I don't know their music well enough to compare the two. One thing is for sure though: Wormfood make some pretty damn weird music, and the degree of success they achieve is quite intriguing. Though the album features many a French film score styled passage, the French connection by no means ends there: the part about "French variety" above should be taken pretty seriously. Some of the interludes can go from an innocent starting point to a rather unnerving conclusion, and generally succeed in adding even more of a weird flavour to the album. Yet seen from afar, _France_ is essentially a metal album, complete with a heavy and well produced sound, bits of extreme metal where they want to use it and, well, pretty much everything else listed above as well. That the whole thing actually works for the most part is remarkable, but this last point is important: the heavier parts are well done, and even integrate well with the odd elements they are forced to live with, which gives the album the strength to carry out its experimentation -- listen to album closer "Love at Last" for a good example.

_France_ is an album that demands your attention, but refuses to be just a weirdfest with a flabby metal component. It can be vibrant and intense just as much as it can throw you off repeatedly, and while not everything works very well, Wormfood's interesting success ratio means this is an album that everyone with an appetite for experimental metal should check out.