Angellore is back.
Six years have passed since their last album, but Walran (vocals/keyboards, Abduction, Impending Triumph, Solstitium), Rosarius (guitar/vocals/keyboards), Ronnie (drums), Celin (bass), and Lucia (vocals) are stepping back into the spotlight with Ardua Music to unveil their fourth album, Nocturnes.
The album welcomes us gently with Falling Birds’ introduction, the first track with a relatively soothing atmosphere even as distortion takes over the guitars, building up to the vocal parts, initially led by Lucia, then by Walran as the sound becomes rawer. The track swings from one extreme to the other, occasionally venturing into an intoxicating middle ground where the musicians blend their influences before yielding to one or the other, finally arriving at Black Sun River and its far more inviting tones, almost joyful at times. Gothic roots are palpable in the singer’s voice, while the young woman offers much more symphonic tones, but it isn’t until two-thirds of the track that the screams return for a moment; the track continues gently until Forsaken Fairytale, where the atmosphere calms down once again. The long introduction lulls us slowly, but the drums will disrupt the established calm by gradually settling in and then summoning the guitars; yet it is truly the vocals and the piano that drive the composition, and while their progression is at times accompanied by piercing leads, it remains deeply majestic right up to its more solemn finale, which leads into Martyrium and its imposing choruses. The coldness responds to the waves of violence masterfully orchestrated by the musicians, supported by the keyboards that accompany the shifts in atmosphere or the alternating vocals that skillfully guide us toward A Dormant Stream, the album’s final and longest track, which begins with very soft sounds and a fairly simple yet hypnotic female vocal, sometimes replaced by growls or more stripped-down instrumental sections that inevitably lead us to the album’s conclusion.
If the word “majestic” had no definition, Angellore could perfectly embody it. Whether in moments of soothing gentleness or in much rougher and darker passages, Nocturnes is masterfully executed from start to finish, and the musicians have left nothing to chance in their quest to captivate us at every moment.
90/100
