Elend – Les Tenebres du Dehors – Review

Elend

Les Tenebres du Dehors (Holy)
by Angela Dauthi

What is the music of fallen angels? When the proud Lightbringer made his descent to the new kingdom of pain, what did he take with him? To describe the beauty and terror manifest on such a journey is no small task. But Elend has achieved the goal. They have created an entire symphony of darkness, rich and full of sonorous harmonies both chilling and furious. Les Ténèbres du Dehors is a tale of a stripped and darkened angel lost in the “ocean of his dreams” as he wanders through the capital of Hell, Pandaemonium. Using opulent, romantic and classical formations, Elend twists the overly consonant traditions and skews the melodies to redirect them in the darkness. Mysterious and foreboding melodies rise from the bed of strings, voices surpassed only by Dead Can Dance, layered and undulating, sweeping the air with a flaming net of sound, catching innocence and perverting it into horror. But the voice of an angel – how to transmit the sound of a legion of Beelzebub’s army? This is where Elend’s terrifying genius shines most disturbingly. The orchestra swells, peaks, crashes, and a voice, bloody and raw, the voice of an infinite fall, a voice which has seen the terrors of millennia, screams from its depths of the horror of paradise vanished. In technical terms, he sounds like a death metal vocalist (which would explain why they’re on the same label as Septic Flesh and Misanthrope), but without the thundering guitars and drums, the sound is even more fearsome – the sound of ultimate pain and suffering, the helplessness of utter damnation. It’s very easy to be in the wrong mood to listen to Les Ténèbres du Dehors, because they approach an area of music that easily slips into pretension. If you aren’t willing to travel with Elend, you’ll be left in Dante’s wood, stumbling blindly while the music becomes incomprehensible. I suggest the following: On the night of the new moon, light a dozen candles and begin drinking red wine, preferably burgundy or possibly a merlot. After half a bottle, begin smoking cigarettes furiously. Then, throat sore and mind reeling, play the album and open yourself to unimaginable loathing made flesh and sound. Reel sickly to the glorious terror, the magnificent opus of damnation.