L'Eclat Du Déclin "Pâle Echo De Ce Que Nous Fûmes" CD Digipack

Co-released with Percussive Spectre. Digipak with 8 pages Booklet limited to 500 Copies
Second Album of this French Black Metal Band !

His first album "Ainsi passe la gloire du monde" ("So passes the glory of the world") was a complex if sometimes overwrought BM / prog-rock exploration of what he sees as the decline and fall of Western civilisation and L'Éclat du Déclin main man Julien Hovelaque continues in this direction, musically and thematically, on LEdD's second album "Pale Écho de ce que Nous Fûmes " ("Pale Echo of what we were"). As on the first album, Hovelaque composed all the tracks and plays all instruments on them so I suppose he has every right in going to excess on all of them if he wishes and indeed right from the very start with opening track "Dernier Eveil", the music and the singing are in full emotional outcry at the state of the world Hovelaque lives in. Clean singing and raspy BM singing alternate often with the BM vocals, no matter how harsh and scratchy they are, acting as a brake on the overwrought shouting and screaming. The stop-start music with its dissonant guitar chords, its mix of instrumental passages that are either slow and melancholy or blast-beat fast and ferocious, and atmospheres at once dark, bleak and theatrical as well, conveys a wide range of emotional states, all of them quite extreme and over-the-top, whether they be brooding sadness, desperation, hopelessness, disgust or sheer anger.
On most songs, while Hovelaque sings in a mix of styles - clean-toned ranting, BM crowing or even the deepest death metal growls - the guitars dominate in either BM tremolo mode or soaring proggy-rock lead guitar wailing. Synthesisers are limited to background orchestral violin tone wash that gives the songs their theatrical and almost hysterical edge. Individual tracks are very complicated in their structures, with new melodies coming in almost up to the very end of the song, and at least one instrumental passage of intense melancholy and emotion will be present. Listeners had better have the tissues and handkerchiefs ready to wipe the tears from their eyes. On one middle track "Un Million de Chutes", the emotion becomes too much even for Hovelaque early on as lead guitar shrieks at the high end of its range and Hovelaque himself risks losing his voice in shouting and screaming.
Moments where Hovelaque ventures into post-BM with a clean singing voice can seem a bit embarrassing - he's much better doing distorted BM or DM vocals - and listeners might wonder why he needs to vary his vocal style so much in nearly each and every song. At the same time when the guitars venture into post-BM mode, they seem so much more genuinely emotional, especially on "Le Verbe des Ruines' where they are allowed a brief soulful blues interlude before the anger starts up again.
While all songs are well written and feature some very good, even outstanding guitar melodies, the singing on them does become tiresome and ruins them with the continuous ranting and changes of vocal style. For an album that can be very intimate and raw in its moods and music, there is not a lot of sonic depth. The music can sound very relentless and painful, and the variety of sounds and musical styles in most songs is not nearly enough to distinguish most songs from one another. Some listeners may find Hovelaque wallowing too much in speaking his despair and anger at his fellow humans.
"Pale Echo ..." certainly isn't pale nor even an echo: it's a full-on emotional experience with music and lyrics that are raw and confrontational. Listeners will need to go a fair few rounds with this one to catch those brief moments of genuine sadness and nostalgia for another, better world.

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