Let’s Celebrate the return of Miserere Luminis.
Fourteen years after their debut album, Icare (drums/vocals, Gris), Neptune (guitar/bass, Gris) and Annatar (guitar/vocals, Sombre Forêts) unveil their sophomore album, Ordalie, released by Sepulchral Productions.
The band has also called on Sylvaine Arnaud and her double bass.
The album begins peacefully enough with Noir Fauve, which lets a few piano notes guide us through the more impressive passages until dissonance reveals itself, quickly followed by wrenching howls. The chilling melodies haunting the atmosphere perfectly blend with this visceral mix, passing through a few suffocating explosions adding the composition that infernal touch, especially on the final section, just before Le sang des rêves lifts the veil on its intoxicating melancholy. A few furious waves punctuate the gripping screamed discourse, sometimes supported by a few misty backing vocals, but one senses that the touch of quietness endures even when the three musicians go wild, as in the final moments of the track, which will be followed by the tortured sounds of La fêlure des anges, featuring brutal yet fairly natural breaks in its heavy rhythm. The whole track is much more painful to listen to, as if imbued with a negative emotion transmitted with every note and immediately veiling our minds, including on the soothing break followed by a final opaque and overwhelming avalanche, The band then allows us a short break with Les couleurs de la perte, whose introduction gradually leads us into the luminous sounds that surround us, but which gradually transform into darker tones on De venin et d’os, the final composition, which pours out all its darkness, however cruel and plaintive it may be. Leads easily join heart-rending cries in this painful dance, before marking a very brief minimalist pause, followed by the return of this hazy rhythm in the company of massive vocal parts, which encourage the riffs to strengthen once more before fading out for good, leaving a few gentle notes to contemplate the void.
Although fourteen years have passed between their first and second opuses, the soul of Miserere Luminis has remained intact. Ordalie is a shattering album that never hesitates to let sweetness or fury express themselves to bring its darkness to life.
95/100