Les sacrifiés

Mourning Dawn made us wait five years since their masterpiece “For the fallen”, but I must say that the wait was worth it. “Les Sacrifiés” is a monumental effort by the band. Everything about it is fantastically executed, from the guitars to the vocals. The first track “The Watchers” is a great intro and a teaser of what the album is going to be, a desolated field of grimness and sorrow. The unbelievable blackness of the next track “About Pride” is what makes you say: “"the wait was worth it”. This track is probably the best song of the album, from the way it's executed; the unique vocals of Mr. Laurent Chaulet steals the attention of the melody until you get a tremendously malevolent and heavy death metal riff that changes the direction of the song, the drums are outstanding and with help of Daniel Droste (Ahab) vocals, the song becomes one of the masterworks of the band's career.

One thing that makes the album so challenging is its variant speeds, from mid pace to slow funeral doom metal passages, some speed and blasting parts like those heard in “A Stone that Bleeds”, and of course, the dark and melancholic sections control the emotions of the listener as the speed is changing. Another characteristic is that the album has, perhaps, the best vocal development in Mourning Dawns catalog, the combination of growls, death metal gutturals, and black metal screams works, it works really well, the music atmosphere is fairly complemented by the effort they put in the vocal work.

It's hard to say if there is a weak song in this album; the whole release maintains an impressively high standard, the versatility of the record is stunning, it shifts between black metal and funeral doom metal as is the case of the album's title track, achieving a great equilibrium. The production is one of the things they looked after the most, is hard to find a black metal album so well produced, every single instrument is in its place with total harmony. Throughout the record, Mourning Dawn takes the listener on an emotional, dark and painful journey. This is because the music composing, it’s brilliant, the guitars steal the show in this album, which is full of memorable riffs and great guitar solos.

I have to admit that this release has some cons, and maybe one of its weakness is the length of some of its songs which could bore some listeners, but that works for me, this is music is to sit down and listen, appreciate, feel and understand. Easily one of the best records released in 2014.