As the days of the 90's passed, the romantic times of the Second Wave of Black Metal slowly were buried under the sands of time, and things improved on the genre in many aspects. But for many fans, things became sadly professional, lacking the passion of the old days when Black Metal was feared and caused disgust in many Metalheads due the crude approach used by the old bands. Today, there are many bands using the old format to create their musical works, with some falling in the ridiculous abyss of the bands that copy the old names; but on other cases, good things come, as happens on "Monte Verità", the first album of the French duet CÉNOTAPHE.

They play a form of Black Metal that has an old and aggressive approach, somewhat remind the earlier (and remarkable) albums of DARKTHRONE, MARDUK, BURZUM, MAYHEM, and those that all the fans love, but bearing the 'know-how' that French Black Metal scene created back on the LLN days. It's aggressive and full of energy, but some melodic parts in the way DISSECTION used (on the band's earlier releases) are evident as well. Of course that it's not something new at all, but the band has a personal touch in all the songs.

For an unaware fan, the sound quality of "Monte Verità" will bring back many lovely feelings of the past, but paying extreme attention, the contribution given by modern record technologies is there, given the songs the right balance between all the elements that it is made of. Maybe the instrumental tunes chosen for the recording is the key for such Old School approach.

Musically, they evade an extremely technical approach, so the songs flow with energy and aggressiveness, but with the needed care on the arrangements. And the pildriving and brutal rhythm of "Myosis" and "Aux Cieux Antérieurs" (this one show subjective sad melodies on the guitars in some moments), the hammering of the drums on "De Mon Promontoire Astral" (where some agonizing clean vocals contrast with harsh shrieks) and on "Intolérante Thébaide" (the bass guitar gives the right compass to support the rhythm), the morbid ambience on some moments of "Ne M'oubliez", and the darkened and melodic scent of "Monte Verità" (beautiful keyboard parts, a feature that could be explored in the future) are the album's best shots, although all the songs are truly good. And by the way, the pictures of the duet show a band with compromise only with music, but that will cause despair on those rule-follower that insist in how a Black Metal band must look like.

As final words of this review, once more it must be said that "Monte Verità" brings nothing new, but CÉNOTAPHE's work is extremely very good, in a way that make the listeners earn for a new release of the band on next month.