Spectrale – Arcanes

Spectrale is a French (mostly) acoustic Folk band with a heavily ambient and atmospheric approach, not entirely unlike what one would expect to find on a Heilung record – Clean, female vocals, spanish guitars, drums and a cello is the different components found within each of the ten tracks present upon Arcanes (which differs slightly from the instruments and approach laid in front by Heilung) and they are expertly mixed and fused in order to more or less bring the past into the present; A powerful slice of the past.

While I can certainly see the appeal of such an approach as well as some of the stronger links Spectrale can draw to the Black Metal genre as a whole (mostly through the atmosphere the six members manage to drum up around themselves) make no mistake – In no way, shape or form can Arcanes be considered a Black Metal, or even a Metal release… And this will sadly be represented by the releases score in this case, since that is our focus here at Metal Revolution.

That being said, Arcanes, and the forty-odd minutes of entertainment it represents, is by no means to be considered a bad album. As a matter of fact, I have no doubt that I could easily sway some medieval re-enactment friends of mine to give it a spin (or several) due to the great build-up and excellent use of acoustic instruments that they present. Both of these aspects can also be seen below, in the official music video for the first release from the album, entitled ”Le Bateleur”; Which, Google tells me, is French for ‘The Fool’.

To sum up; Definitely a band that I can imagine several Folk band (and re-enaction enthusiasts) find some pleasure in listening to – But by no means a band that I would expect to see at any of the festivals I frequent.

https://www.facebook.com/spectrale.bx/