Le Morte – Midnight In The Garden Of Tragedy

For you reading this, still unfamiliar with this band, let’s start with a little introduction. Le Morte (‘The Dead’ in French) is a two-men band hailing from Richmond, Virginia (USA). The band consists of Nathaniel Acker & Andrew Scully. This duo have been writing music together since 2008, but first started writing the demo in the winter of 2020. In other words, they’ve not been hyper-productive, as they took time to focus on every detail of their sound, imagery and production.

Despite of the fact that Midnight In The Garden Of Tragedy is their debut full-length, we’re still taking of two experienced musicians, where Nathaniel previously played in Occultist, and Scully was in a project named Rigorous Institution.

As briefly mentioned before, it was a cold and grim beginning to a darkness that has followed. Now, the band has released their nine-tracker full-length entitled Midnight In The Garden Of Tragedy. It’s been released via our old friends from Darkness Shall Rise Productions. I guess it’s also a kind of proof that Darkness Shall Rise has not only specialized in releasing tape-boxes, but also introducing fans to some new bands and help speading the words about it.

What can we then expect from Midnight In The Garden Of Tragedy then? It’s been released as a Jewel-case CD with 8-page booklet where all lyrics are printed inside. On Midnight In The Garden Of Tragedy, Le Morte combines heavy Doom Metal with the pounding intensity of Industrial and Death Metal.

Before the very first spin of this album I was not quite sure what to expect from Le Morte. After a couple of spins in my stereo, it kind of surprised me, revealing new details with each new listening. Thus, I find their sound as diverse and varied as you can possibly get from this type of music. It’s an interesting blend of traditional Doom-, Black-, Industrial- and Death Metal, even paired with some punkish elements. Vocals are mainly raw, eerie and with heavy distortion. There’s some heavy lifting on the guitars as well, producing some killer slow and crushing riffing. Drums are steady and thicker/slower than most of (Doom) Metal releases out there.

My favourite tracks are the opening track “A Cold and Failing Light”, pretty much a Funeral Doom track, with this burning slow main guitar riff, and another awesome song called “Gothic Architecture”, being oddly reminiscent of English doomsters from Paradise Lost, but again – it was another absolutely delightful experience. The atmosphere is simple, harrowing and mesmerizing, while the cover artwork is pretty much representative of the band’s sound.

Le Morte have been playing around for more than a decade and with the release of Midnight In The Garden Of Tragedy it clearly shows. Song-writing and the whole take on music may seem simplistic and primitive to some, but you can’t deny that it’s also effective and with lots of meaning. It is tremendosuly recommended to take Midnight In The Garden Of Tragedy and have a proper listening experience. Let yourself immerse in this otherwordly journey.

Make sure to order your own copy while it lasts from https://darknessshallrise.de/product/le-morte-us-midnight-in-the-garden-of-tragedy-cd-pre-order/?v=dd65ef9a5579 or just learn more about this American duo at https://lemortedoom.bandcamp.com/