The first thing that grabbed my attention about Crépuscule d'Octobre was, surprisingly enough, the excellent cover art. One look at this beautiful naturalistic photograph with its elegantly simple font and I was immediately intrigued - the music contained within this Forteresse album isn't terribly different from what you may expect after taking a glance at the cover, either. Raw, organic, and nature-influenced black metal is the best way to describe the music here, and Forteresse clearly aims to create brutally hypnotic atmospheres in the form of long and extended compositions with this effort. I have a tough time imagining any black metal fan who hasn't heard dozens of albums similar to this one, but there are more than enough redeeming qualities to allow me to consider this a successful observation.
Although the first two minutes or so of Crépuscule d'Octobre are dominated by atmospheric synthesizers, almost the entire rest of the album consists of tremolo-picked riffing, raw black metal aesthetics, and hypnotic drum patterns. You'll find lots of blast beats and dense walls of sound throughout this 45-minute album, but there's always a striking sense of melody in the guitar playing, even if it isn't always immediately noticeable. This, parred with the generally mid-to-fast paced tempos, makes Crépuscule d'Octobre a pretty intriguing listen from time to time, even if I do occasionally find my mind wandering throughout the album. The melodies do tend to blend into each other, and even after repeated listens, only a few stand out as particularly remarkable.
Crépuscule d'Octobre is not a flawless album due to its fairly standard approach and lack of distinction between tracks, but it has sparked my interest in investigating Forteresse a little bit further. While it may not exactly make my blood boil, this is a very good album and should undoubtedly appeal to fans of old school black metal of the more atmospheric variant. 3 stars are pretty fair in this case.
Track Listing:
1. Silence d'octobre
2. Le triomphe des douze
3. La lame du passé
4. Mon esprit rôde toujours
5. Spectres du solstice
6. Enfants du Lys
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