LEÇONS DE TÉNÈBRES

A rather odd little debut, wavering between majestic neoclassical darkwave like a more orchestrally-focused Dead Can Dance on the one hand and some sort of weird attempt at death metal dungeon synth on the other, with the combination of occasionally cheap-sounding keyboards and slightly unconvincing screamed vocals providing the dungeon synth and death metal components respectively. The album is far more successful whenever shouting is refrained from and gorgeous soprano vocals issue forth instead. The consensus seems to be that subsequent albums are better, and whilst there's supposedly a conceptual trilogy at work here I suspect you wouldn't miss out on a whole lot if you skipped this.