Thoughts: 9 Years In the Sanctuary

Subtitled 9 Years in the Sanctuary, Thoughts is unsurprisingly a compilation, drawing from the French band's four albums to serve as an introduction to American audiences via Projekt — an understandable spiritual home given Dark Sanctuary's elegant, moody way around all things goth. Despite the title the compilation in practice covers a five year range from 1999 to 2004, favoring the more recent albums L'Etre Las/L'envers du Miroir and Les Mèmoires Blessèes. Only one song, a longer version of "Les Larmes du Meprise," is otherwise unavailable, making this less for established fans and more for a general audience. As such Thoughts succeeds, though the slow, stately pace of the band's music will not necessarily be to everyone's taste — nearly every selection follows a general pattern of lengthy orchestrated introduction, controlled but passionate singing and the sense of heavily perfumed languor. The mournful keyboard progression of the opening "La Clameur du Silence," with Dame Pandora's semi-operatic lead vocals, calls to mind Controlled Bleeding at its most sweeping, and with that setting the tone Thoughts serves up one involved piece after another (the shortest song is four minutes long and most are around six minutes). The effect of Thoughts is of a series of pieces from soundtracks, almost — settings for modern gothic (in more than one sense of the word) romances and moments of high drama. Perhaps as a result when the music takes on a simpler turn — the conclusion of "Vie Ephemere," where the drums depart, leaving only strings and gentle guitar, or the soaring midsection of "Au Milieu des Sepultures," nothing but vocals and string synth — the emotional impact is more distinct, more gripping. The liner notes include all lyrics in English, though the original songs are, unsurprisingly, all performed in French.