Aorlhac – La Cité des Vents

Continuing on with my ramblings from yesterday I am proceeding backwards through time and the discography of Aorlhac, to the also-to-be re-released album La Cité des Vents (rough translation meaning ‘The Windy City’), their first Full-length album originally released fourteen years ago in 2010.

As is to be expected from an epic medival-inspired Black Metal quartet such as Aorlhac, they seem to have started off strong with this fully-fledges release with many of the hallmarks of their sound already being clearly present and while perhaps not as strongly defined as their later release, still obvious enough for me to draw an immediate connection. For me, the strongest difference between the two is the more ‘roughened around the edges’ aesthetic that I found on this record – Just ever so slightly more dirty in the mixing, less pronounced growling as opposed to a more guttural howl. Both of which I find both make them stand out more in a (as far as I am concerned) surprisingly crowded and talented French Black Metal scene and better fit the feudal struggles, frustration and anger I glean through my (sadly) limited understanding of the French language.

As for the same question I attempted to answer yesterday – How does this album hold up to modern scrutiny, if at all? Well, in my opinion, surprisingly well, probably even more so than its latter counterpart due in no small part to the fact that it is just more unique, more gritty, more… Epic, but in a fantastically dirty manner that to me serves as a grand homage to the roots of the genre while at the same time digging deep into their own culture, norms and attitudes (quite a few tracks relate specifically to medieval norms and history in the are that the band is based, which is a nice, personal touch that I will laud from here until the next field over).

Now, had this been a review of the original nine-tracks long release (including the Taake cover song and instrumental intro), these fifty-three minutes of pure, unadulterated dark ages heresy would have scored at least a full points higher than what I am giving it credit for here. However, due to the fact that it offers literally nothing new (being a re-release and hence have been seen before), I will have to rank it just a bit above its successor (which admittedly would also have scored a bit higher from the same notion). That being said, not only do I consider this a worthy album to release onto the public once more, I fully adore the collectors-like edition that the record label has made for all three – They are quickly rising to the top of my list of favourite collectors editions.

Recommended for fans of Malevolentia, Véhémence and Darkenhöld.

https://www.facebook.com/Aorlhac/