Angellore – Nocturnes

Angellore – Nocturnes
Ardua Music
Release Date: 05/15/26
Review by Jon Deaux
7.5/10
Points deducted because five tracks is a form of emotional cruelty, and I want the rest immediately, and nobody is bringing it

 I am writing this at half past eleven on a Monday night – which is, of course, when all of the legally sanctioned gothic doom listening takes place. This is me surrounded in an emotional weather front – which is, of course, to be expected, but if I am getting emotionally ambushed by something on a weeknight, at the very least it needs to be something with production values. I have standards – and I refused to listen to an album based solely on the cover art resembling Wetherspoons, so yes – I do have standards, which brings us to Angellore – a band from Avignon who have spent the last ten years making an album.

My father spent a shorter period of time making an addition to our house, and even then, that’s far from finished, complete with tarpaulin. These French madmen have spent ten years perfecting something that is designed to elicit an emotional response from you, one that you decided that you wouldn’t have anymore. Impressive and utterly inconsiderate. 

Angellore. Say it out loud – try saying it into the mirror at midnight and watch something supernatural happen. Or maybe not – I’m pretty sure I’ve met support acts who’ve done something similarly atmospheric just standing around. They were from France, too. They were a band from 2004 and did everything in silence until they broke their tour manager’s heart with a meaningful stare. I assume Angellore are more polite – but then, they’re from Avignon, which means they’re probably atmospheric. Being atmospheric is basically mandatory in France.

The album starts with the appropriately titled ‘Falling Birds’. Once the oboe kicks in, a part of me goes, “Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be”. So I sat down and let ‘Falling Birds’ work its magic. You cannot sip anything whilst an oboe introduction occurs – that is simply not right, and I speak from experience.

Lucia’s vocals here deserve special mention – she manages to channel the angel who made questionable life choices perfectly, before becoming the last thing you’ll hear before your life changes in the forest. The guitars on this album are sad in a way that a truly beautiful painting of rain can be sad – it’s a precise type of melancholia achieved only by people who’ve spent time thinking about it. Oboe and bass clarinet tend towards comedy – although not in this case, and this album doesn’t give me a single chance to be smug and dismissive about its composition – I had a plan for that, I assure you.  

‘Black Sun River’…is it possible that this is moving? Yes. Gothic Doom can move. It’s rare – gothic doom tends towards the stationary, like a depressing barge. But this track manages to move, dragging centuries of doomed romance behind it like a really heavy-duty coat. There have been a few times when I’ve felt the need to pause whatever I’m reading on the train to look out of the window and breathe through my nose. ‘Black Sun River’ is like that – but for five solid minutes. I had to go stand outside for half an hour after it.

‘Forsaken Fairytale’ throws everything it has at you – clean vocals, harsh vocals, the theatricality of it, and “I have seen things in woodland that I can’t talk about” – and manages to create a cohesive story out of it, something which most other bands fail to achieve even when trying to perform multiple vocalists. I’ve attempted something similar once – during a dinner party in 2009, when I told an anecdote using three different vocal ranges and got ejected from the dining room. Flute here is outrageous. Utterly crazy flute. A flute that makes me feel like the person playing it has made permanent and unalterable decisions about life and is happy with those decisions. There is also cellist Raphaël Verguin. A man who could not have chosen a more fitting name for himself – if his name had been something like Craig, I would have made him leave. The piano here sits in the mix like the most dignified thing you’ve ever heard – it looks at everything else like that thing doesn’t belong.

‘Martyrium’ puts you on a moor, with the clouds swirling above, and you’re wearing something impractical and beautiful and that is enough. I’ve experienced this sensation before – I’ve done live performances in weather conditions that would ground planes and fabrics that defied the laws of thermodynamics – and it’s all about commitment. Complete dedication to what you’re doing. And ‘Martyrium’ here shows complete dedication to the performance, which briefly made me wonder if I’d joined the wrong band. Production by Déhà, the mastermind who gained emotional control in Belgium. It sounds expensive, and it sounds inevitable – like continental drift with better hair. This is the kind of track you follow for weeks afterwards and never explain to anybody because a)you have a reputation and b)explaining gothic doom to somebody that considers Evanescence as a step too far takes it out of you.

‘A Dormant Stream’ wraps it all up – grand pianos, ethereal flutes, and chords carrying the weight of a ten-year process. It’s a combination that creates a piece of music you can’t help but listen to again and again. It either deserves massive praise or it’s the kind of album you’ll find yourself listening to and unable to stop, and wondering if you’ve been hypnotized by a group of psychics with the help of a French bassist whose name is Gaétan Juif. That is something I must address now – because that name is something worth sitting with. Gaétan. His job title? The bassist and the painter of this record’s cover artwork. I need to have a conversation with Gaétan Juif, and it will change me in ways I don’t yet understand.

Five tracks – recorded in half of Europe (Iceland, Belgium, anywhere where feelings were permitted and heating was unreliable). Mixed and mastered with the precision of a surgical team – ‘Nocturnes’ is the result of Déhà’s work in Belgium and somebody who mastered tracks including October Falls (that’s the equivalent of a Michelin star, by the way). The whole thing takes up forty-five minutes of your life and demands nothing except for your undivided emotion, which is what it gets, despite your attempts at keeping it otherwise. This is an album that just knows what it is. Unhesitating, uncompromising. Ten years of effort poured into creating it and demanding that you follow through on it.

Is this ten years worth the wait? Absolutely. This is an album that manages to produce emotions that I’d be embarrassed to talk about in a well-lit room and it does so without any irony, with skill and dedication. I gave it a proper shot – I applied critical methods to listening to it and ‘Nocturnes’ continued being magnificent. Listen to it on headphones, at midnight, and with something to drink that you don’t finish.

TRACKLISTING:
01. Falling Birds
02.  Black Sun River
03. Forsaken Fairytale
04.  Martyrium
05.  A Dormant Stream

LINKS:

https://www.facebook.com/AngelloreDoom

https://www.arduamusic.com/
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Victor Augusto and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.