Dernier Bastion, 2010
Genre: Black Metal
1. Crépuscule
2. Envers et contre tout
3. Ballade pour l'amie perdue
4. En l'abîme emmuré
5. Interlude
6. Dernière Salve
7. Triste plaisir et douloureuse joye
8. Spleen
9. Ciel Nocturne
10. Cuer qui en tel tristour demeure
This is the second album from Ciel Nocturne and it is, unfortunately, going to be their last effort. The good news here is that they went out on a rather high note with this being a pretty solid release. As with the others this is released on cassette only and limited to 200 hand-numbered copies, of which I own #199.
I can kind of understand why they decided to end the project with this album, the music is trending even more heavily into the Autarcie direction. So, with that realization it probably made sense to just focus on Autarcie at this point. "Dernière Salve" sends us down the LLN road even more than before, but they still manage to keep a bit of that melody in their music these musicians are famous for. But here we have a mixture of melody and that weird strained and dissonant styling heard on many LLN projects. The result is a fairly primitive feeling music, but still presented with a great deal of passion for the music. It has a raw and unbridled feel, especially with the really lo-fi production. Meanwhile, these two musicians have only improved their craft and they sound a lot tighter within their own music than ever before. The interplay between drums and guitar sync up far more often, whereas in prior releases sometimes things would meander off from time to time, but now they're more in line with each other.
On the one hand I would normally be sad to see this project end, just as they were striking out on a sound that was extremely good and far better than before... but on the other hand we have Autarcie. Basically, if you had this demo and enjoyed it, go check out Autarcie now and see where this sound gets developed in even greater detail!
Drakkar Productions, 2008
Genre: Black Metal
1. Intro - Matin d'hiver
2. Fragments d'un passé qui me ronge
3. Le Goût du néant
4. Déclin Salutaire
5. Season of Solitude Part I
6. Paysage fané
7. La forêt sanctuaire
8. Grise ameritume
9. Brumes et pluies
10. Season of Solitude Part II
11. Outro - Dégel
After a bit of a dodgy demo, Ciel Nocturne put out their first full-length. Sure its often listed as a demo, but it's released by a major Black Metal label and runs about forty-five minutes in length, so it may as well be a full-length as far as I'm concerned. This is a cassette only release and has a pro-printed booklet with dubbed tape. It seems this is limited in some capacity because the #308 appears on my booklet.
I was a little worried when I first sat through the intro song, because the guitars were entirely too fuzzy and way too loud in the mix. Okay, the guitars are way too fuzzy throughout the entire album, but at least the mix balances off a bit more. It's still not that great and feels more like an LLN styled project in many respects. While the riffing is far more purposeful and strikes more melodic in sections, they still delve into that rather disturbing dissonance those projects touched upon in many ways. This is one of those times when slightly cleaning up the production a little bit might take something difficult to listen to and turn it into something very well done. A lot of the riffs on here are actually very well done, but they're getting loss in the mess of the production value. The only outright bad decision song wise, as far as I can tell is the choice to do clean vocals on "Season of Solitude Part I" and other songs where they show up.
For the most part this is a lot better than the split tape and they have matured their song writing quite a bit more. Perhaps working in projects like Hasserben has helped advanced that a bit more. This project is certainly a lot more melancholic than the likes of Hasserben though. Either way, aside from the totally necro-production, the only really bad ideas were the clean vocals, because those aren't that well executed at any rate. So, if you're a fan of the raw Black Metal scene out in France, this is probably worth hearing, just wish the production was a little better, because a lot of this appears to be pretty solid material.
Wolfsturm Propaganda, 2007
Genre: Black Metal
Ciel Nocturne:
1. Totaler Krieg
2. Division Sequania
3. Logik der Ausrottung
4. Hans Siste Vinter (Darkthrone cover)
5. Gloire Ephémère
Devilmind:
6. Au Travers des Montagnes
7. Notre Territoire Menacé
8. Résistance Patriotique
9. Emprise Tyrannique
10. Jour de Gloire
11. Lorsque l'Esprit Revient a Grands a Grands Pas
Side Devilmind: ...coming eventually (but probably not, wasn't too into this)...
Side Ciel Nocturne:
I ended up finding Ciel Nocturne through my interest in the band Autarcie, since both members play in that band as well. Ciel Nocturne pre-dates that band a little bit though and I've enjoyed most of what these musicians do, so I figured I would try out their Ciel Nocturne project. The project debut's on a split tape limited to 200 hand-numbered copies. I own either 101, 104 or 107... it's hard to tell because the hand writing is so terrible. The booklet is printed on harder paper and looks professionally printed instead of a do-it-yourself xerox type of job.
Even though Metal-Archives states that their project called Svartkrig became Autarcie, I think the Ciel Nocturn music is a bit closer to what Autarcie play. Perhaps that's why Ciel Nocturne was eventually put to rest, because there was no point in running two projects that were so similar. Either way, if you're expecting a pristine and polished project, look someplace else. These musicians play harsh and raw Black Metal. To me a lot of their sound is heavily rooted in the style of Darkthrone, which is painfully obvious due to the cover that appears on this album. However, it is even more raw than what Darkthrone has produced on their albums. I do think Ciel Nocturne tend to be a little more melodic compared to Darkthrone, in the way the French play with melody at any rate. Prior to Ciel Nocturne they were also involved with a project called Svartkrig, which was very good, but far more intense. Ciel Nocturne is a much more laid back sounding Black Metal by comparison. This doesn't mean they play slow, we are treated to quite a few fast songs, blast beats and all, throughout the demo, but the compositions don't feel nearly as intense as the Svartkrig material.
So, if you're into Darkthrone inspired material, this may be a project to look at for future releases. Every song isn't great, but they have their moments. It's certainly a fairly solid start to a project and I'm interested to see where they go from here.
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