C'ÉTAIENT DE TRÈS GRANDS VENTS

"Glaciations" takes five minutes of ambient sounds similar to the darkest parts of Vangelis Heaven and Hell before becoming noisy and chaotic, with strings crying like somebody is killing them over a frenetic drum. When the drums stop we are in a realm of deadly bells with strings, guitar and trombone slowly dying. From the track title I think the music represents the extintion. And it does it very well.

"Ocean" is more grotesque. The guitar plays a major chord on which the other instruments build what apparently is chaos but is I think perfectly planned. The trombone is the lead instrument and the guitar crescendo seems to announce an emerging Cthulhu from the abyss. Effectively after a short pause the second part of the track is heavily and evily chaotic. A sonic tsunami. Like a tsunami, when the chaos is gone what remains is desolation, for the last 20 seconds of the track.

"Promethee " (or Prometeus) has lyrics. It's incredible how Sylvette Claudet sings with her soprano voice just a quarter of tone out of tune in order to increase the weirdness of the track. The impression is like a follow-up of the dark hymn to Yog-Sototh on their first album, but this time more than a hymn is an elegy.

"D'un Seul Et Meme Souffle" (A single identical breathe) is again very cemeterial. One has to be in the right mood for this music, but this time the link to classical music is more evident. Even with fulfilled of darkness I hear a bit of Stravinskij. It's classical contemporary more than Zeuhl. The album's highlight. "La Nef De Fous" (The Ship Of Fools) is a chaotic crescendo over a heavily distorted bass, like in death metal. Differently from the other tracks this has a jazz mood with a touch of psychedelia. The chaos of this track is not too different from the most acid Floyd.

"Contrincante" start with trombone and bass. A bit of relax after all the chaos, but the sounds are sinister and one can expect everything. Some bass passages appear to be melodic, surely a mistake of the bassist...the guitar joins and now we have three instruments apparently going on their own, but this is jazz, I can't tell what chord they play, but they are playing on the same chords.

The title track closes the album with the longest piece. It starts with percussions and noises just enhanced by trombone and bass. After a couple of minutes Edward Perraud shows what he can do with drums: a jazz base on which the other instrumentists put their dark effort. The track takes about 6 minutes to become more chaotic, thanks to the distorted bass, but it's the drums which lead it until the end, with the guitar crying pain on the high pitches. The last minutes are a return to the ambient of the first track.

A step back respect to the debut but still a good album for who likes spending some time in the hell.

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