Don't ever judge a book by it's cover. This traditional Chinese adage match perfectly with this second album of THE COSA NOSTRA KLUB (THE CNK). When I saw the cover of their second album L' Hymne A La Joie, I smiled and thought that this album will be really bad. How wrong I was...!
The band was formed in Clermont France in 1996, by Nicolas St Morand (aka Mr Hreidmarr), just after he left the black metallers ANOREXIA NERVOSA, with the help from Jean-Sebastien Ogilvy (aka Mr Heinrich Von B).  After a while, the lineup was completed by Sylvain Deslaves (aka Mr Sylvicious) and Jean-Emmanuel Artfield-Lautrec (aka Mr Valnoir), on drums and bass respectively. THE CNK's first album Ultraviolence Uber Alles was released in 2002, which unfortunately is actually sold-out and not repressed anymore. 5 years later, The CNK released L' Hymne A La Joie.
The thing I liked in those guys music the most, was that you can't categorize their music. Here you will listen from heavy riffs to EBM, operatic vocals till brutal and epic compositions, not like epic metal bands but in a Wagner-like style. The first big surprise was when I listen to the intro of   L' Hymne A La Joie.  It's a cover of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9! Listening to that second album of THE CNK, I realized that you can mix many kinds of music and the result can be really good and not crap. Imagine Carl Orff sitting in a bar, drinking vodka with RAMMSTEIN and ALEC EMPIRE, when Kubric is sitting next to them with LAIBACH, listening to THE KOVENANT. A mixture of metal, classic music and industrial. Every single track on this album is a small treasure. But you want to earmark some songs, I would choose C[osa] N[ostra] K[lub], Total Eclipse Of Dead Europa and The Doomsday.
L' Hymne A La Joie has haunted my CD player. An album full of real music, that can't be under one label. Epic, classic songs, full of metal riffs and an essence of industrial. Lets just hope that the THE CNK's next album will not take 5 years to be released. Get in the Klub!