Band:	Arcana Coelestia
Album:	Le Mirage De L'Idéal
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Funeral doom metal
Release date:	April 04, 2009
A review by:	Lucas

01. Duskfall
    1 - An Autumnal Overture
    2 - The Silent Pilgrim
    3 - In Eclipse
02. Requiem (For The Fathomless Void Of Redemption)
03. Le Mirage De L'Idéal

04. Tragedy & Delirium I (The Tragedy)
05. Tragedy & Delirium II (The Delirium)
06. ...Thus Fade In Nocturnal Deluge

Heavy Metal has always had its fair share of occult themed bands and concept albums, with varying degrees of quality. Ridiculous and laughable, mesmerizing and haunting, and everything in between. There's always been a fair share of conceptual madness to our favourite music style, too, and it are exactly these two factors that Arcana Coelestia ('Heavenly Secrets' in Latin) combine on their genre-transcending Le Mirage De L'Idéal.

With a story based on the Swedish writer August Strindberg, a man who's life bordered on madness which he himself called his "Infernocrisis", the music is quite fitting. Their mixture of Black and Funeral Doom often reminds the listener of Esoteric with it's maelstrom riffs, hellfire production and cataclysmic approach at the end of times. A scorching experience, with genial twists, is what Arcana Coelestia offers us. Even though the sound is spaciously produced there are few moments to breathe as you're enveloped by a cloak of sound from the get-go. Going through all moods on the darker side of the spectrum, touching melancholy, hate, grief, torment and everything inbetween, it is an emotionally riveting album that'll warp your mind's eye.

The album cover art represents the music only in the sense if it depicts the split-second before a Greek God jealous of the lucky swan comes barging in, rips the swan's organs out and throws them in the cosmic whirpool he created when barging in - to let the swan's intestines swirl forever in the flames of perishing cosmic hellfire. Arcana Coelestia's Le Mirage De L'Idéal may not beat Esoteric's The Maniacal Vale in terms of pure soul annihilation, but hey, that's hardly surprising. It is still one hell of an album, a must for anyone that wants his soul torn to shreds.