Forteresse – Thèmes Pour La Rébellion

Quite polished and "well-engineered" overall sound. Not a surprise because it's mixed and mastered by Necromorbus, which is usually a big turnoff for me - but this time the sound is, however, not bad at all. Quite ok for this kind of stuff. However, the sound is not any intriguing, just basic.

The drummer does his job well and uses fills etc with good taste. All right.

Guitar sound is quite all right too, not that interesting but not bad, certainly. What is distinctive for this album (And maybe the band overall? I'm not so familiar with the other records.) is the copious use of tremolo-picked high-pitched guitar melodies flavoured with reverb. Actually this happens pretty much during the whole album. Many of the leads are pretty good, some great, and quite a many not so interesting. At worst they sound too schlager-esque for me. I absolutely hate the trend of schlager black metal prevalent in the last few years. But, fortunately, this is not that kind of stuff but rather something more original. So the leads are not a problem per se. They are both the strong and the weak point of this one.

Mgla comes to mind, thinking about the use of the leads. Of course it's a totally different sounding band but any way a valid object of comparison. That one I love, whereas on this album, the lack of variety is a problem. Basically the only moods tried to be conveyed by the leads are 1. heroically plaintive and 2. noble. Those two stay for the whole duration of the album, which makes it quite uninteresting. The whole of the album is simply too unbalanced. Epic parts are not epic when the music tries to be epic all the time. Perhaps if the overall sound would be more rugged this wouldn't be a problem. EDIT: Actually this seems to be the case, having listened to the earlier records from the band - they are way better.

So, pretty adept and quite original, often great, too often lukewarm. Not a bad album but not a good one either. Actually, pretty much the same problem as with Csejthe - Réminiscence. This one's very hyped but not worth the hype, like few records are. Nice to listen through, but I see no point in having this in my collection. Quite easy to see why this is so popular, though.

3+/5

Umm why is the 2021 repressing merged with the original pressing from 2018? I imagine at least the packaging is different. The earth literally flew around the sun 3 times since this was last pressed, definitely making the 2021 version a repressing.

This has now been repressed! Don't pay stupid prices on Discogs!
https://store.eisenton.de/en/records-c-43/vinyl-c-46/forteresse-themes-pour-la-rebellion-lp-p-8529

It is still available on the label's website : https://www.sepulchralproductions.com/products/forteresse-themes-pour-la-rebellion-lp