Sortilège - Forged in Flame: The Fantasy, Fury, and French Soul of Heavy Metal
Why France might just be the most metal country on Earth.
Heavy metal is BIG in France—not just in record shops or festival grounds, but in everyday life. Walk into the right bar in a village of 500 people and you might find two tattooed locals crooning Claude François medleys like they’re headlining Hellfest. Metal here isn’t niche—it’s a bit a part of the DNA.
A French Juggernaut
Hellfest, held annually in Clisson near Nantes, is one of Europe’s biggest metal festivals, drawing fans from around the world for 4 days of blistering guitars and genre-spanning lineups.
Like the giant turbines that line the French landscape: I, too, am a big heavy metal fan.
I love metal—especially tracks filled with wizards, warlocks, massive riffs, and unapologetic theatricality. It’s not just screaming and noise (although there is some screaming), it’s complex, sometimes absurd, and powerful in its sheer commitment.
I could research this genre for days. I have a 12-hour metal playlist on Spotify, in case you need too much of a good thing.
Also—wizards, dragons, and castles are cool. Singing about them is cool.
If you ever find yourself in France (or anywhere with castles) and somehow feel bored (for some personal failing or another), give your moment a heavy metal soundtrack —dragons circling overhead, undead armies breaching the gates, Rapunzel hurling fireballs instead of just passively waiting for a prince, etc.
I do this a lot, actually.
Heavy metal will level up your experience.
D’ailleurs – Sortilège (1984)
From their debut album Métamorphose, “D’ailleurs” (“From Elsewhere”—or perhaps more fittingly, “From Beyond”) is a soaring, theatrical slab of French fantasy metal. A soul-sucking alien performs dark rituals to save his kind: sci-fi mysticism in an arcane, operatic epic. Christian “Zouille” Augustin’s vocals soar like a spell cast across dimensions, while Stéphane Dumont’s wizard-like guitar conjures entire worlds—together channeling some Ronnie James Dio/Richie Blackmore energy.
Did is a bold comparison, but there is no understatement here.
This is Power Metal.
And yes, Dio is better, but Sortilège is pretty good.
Are the lyrics “good”? Maybe not by literary standards - they’re dramatic, clunky, yet gloriously over-the-top. Heavy metal is a driving fantasy soap opera, and “D’ailleurs” runs screaming into it, sword raised.
Into the Forge
The roots of metal go back to the 1960s, and even before if you look at it from how bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Blue Cheer and others hardened blue riffs created in a long line of mostly American innovators. Proto-punk band Death (from Detroit) formed in 1971—a landmark year for music.
The influence of early metal pioneers rippled into France, where bands like Trust fused heavy riffs with French lyrics and political bite—setting the stage for Sortilège to level up the genre with AD&D-style dark fantasy, technical flair, and gloriously questionable lyrics.
If you’re new to metal—or just metal-curious—step into the arcane portal that is Sortilège.
Sortilège stood out by singing in French at a time when nearly all metal was in English, even in France. Their bold, fantasy-driven take on traditional heavy metal—complete with galloping riffs and operatic vocals—was melodramatic, but proved metal could thrive in French, even as most of the country still looked to English-language acts for rock..
a part of the landscape
We stayed in a small town in Brittany over the holidays - one of those places where they even shut off the street lights after a certain time, plunging the place into blackness. But on market days, a bunch of people piled into the small local bar, belting away with karaoke at 10am on a Sunday.
When I went over to see what was going on, a man with a shaved head covered with tattoos singing alongside a woman who looked like she had just left church - or was going. They seemed to be there most days that the place was open, a small social spot in an incredible small town,
One of the tattooed guys singing New York, New York when he heard I was from, well, New York. I didn’t take his picture - that felt like it would have made it weird…
France’s metal scene runs deep, with over 6,800 registered bands according to Encyclopedia Metallum - more than Sweden. Although in per capita terms, Sweden is well ahead with 38 metal bands per 100,000 people, France has 10 per, and the U.S. has 7.2, but the U.S. still has over 42,000 heavy metal bands.
You may or may not be a fan, but that doesn’t matter—over the past 40 years, metal has evolved from underground rebellion to a global, genre-spanning force.
With over 65 subgenres from fantasy-laced epics to atmospheric hybrids like blackgaze and everything in between, metal isn’t just music, it’s an entire ecosystem of music.
Hellfest: France’s Metal Mecca
Held annually in Clisson, a small town near Nantes, Hellfest has grown from a niche event in 2006 into the largest metal festival in Europe—and arguably the world. Over 200 bands with 60,000 fans each day, attracting metalheads from across the globe. Tickets sell out within minutes, often before the lineup is even announced.
They’ve still got it…
Hellfest has hosted a who's who of heavy music: Iron Maiden, Slayer, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Gojira, Rammstein, Megadeth, and KISS, among so many others.
The impact on Clisson has been massive. This picturesque medieval village transforms each June into a thunderous, black-clad metropolis and has turned Clisson into a year-round destination for metal tourism. There's a giant Lemmy (from Mötörhead) statue in town and a giant Hellfest sign at Nantes Airport that stays up all year.
The new Lemmy statue is a replacement for the old one, which melted. So Clisson has doubled down on Lemmy.
This year, the site includes a full camping village, complete with yurts and chalets, to accommodate the flood of fans. For one week each summer, this quiet corner of France becomes a metal metropolis.
Like what you’re hearing (and reading)?
If France’s most magical metal scene hit the right chord—like, share, and subscribe for more riffs, rituals, and revelations. Got a favorite fantasy metal track or local legend? Drop it in the comments - we’re building a playlist worthy of dragons.
Sortilège by Sortilège from the album Sortilège - 1983
Sortilège—which means “spell” in French (at least according to my apps) but it seems to cover enchantment, prophecy, and a whole bunch of kind of negatively-tinged magical business.
The band lives up to it, whatever the precise meaning is (any francophones want to comment on these translations? please let me know!). From the opening riff, it’s theatrical metal magic: soaring vocals, galloping rhythms, and 20th-level wizard-grade guitar work from Stéphane Dumont.
Natural 20.
Roll for Initiative.
It’s rare, bold, and a bit magical when a band releases a song named after themselves on an album with the same name—but Sortilège wasn’t alone. They joined a select and powerful lineage of bands brave enough to plant their flag three times.
In metal, Black Sabbath opened their debut album Black Sabbath (1970) with the doom-laden track “Black Sabbath,” arguably casting the first spell of heavy metal history. Iron Maiden later did “Iron Maiden” on Iron Maiden in 1980, a song that became their live-show closer for years.
In other genres, Bad Company (great keys on that version) had “Bad Company” on the album Bad Company (1974) - you’ve probably heard it before. Talk Talk did “Talk Talk” on Talk Talk in 1982 .
Bo Diddley also delivered “Bo Diddley” on his 1958 self-titled album, laying down blues beats that would echo through rock and metal.
Dumont’s playing, like many metal greats, has roots in the blues, tracing roots back to legends like B.B. King, Albert King, and the syncopated swagger of Bo Diddley, among others. You can hear it in the phrasing - sped up and distorted, but the foundation is there.
And just in case you’re (somehow) still not into metal after all of this, here’s a beautiful 1980s gem in another genre.
K