Band:	Elend
Album:	A World In Their Screams
Style:	Dark Ambient, Neoclassical
Release date:	April 23, 2007
A review by:	Lucas

01. Ophis Puthôn
02. A World In Their Screams
03. Ondes De Sang
04. Le Dévoreur
05. Le Fleuve Infini Des Morts
06. Je Rassemblais Tes Membres
07. Stasis
08. Borée
09. La Carrière D'Ombre
10. J'Ai Touché Aux Confins De La Mort
11. Urserpens

A World In Their Screams is the seventh and latest album from the French hard-to-categorize Elend. Offering us almost an hour of dark ambiences, neo-classical music and French whispers, this is bound to fall on deaf ears with most Metalstormers. But of course that is hardly a criteria since most Metalstormers are hardly experts on music outside of metal.

Anyway, let's not ramble about that but rather discuss what should be discussed. As mentioned earlier, this album floats on ambience and would be nothing without. From the first moment on, a woman uttering a fragile and incomprehensible wish, an eerie feeling crawls over the listener. Hell has broken loose and it shows itself in various forms. From ghastly whispered vocals to film-score-esque climaxes, from disturbing mutilation tomb soundscapes to horrid grotesque classical atmospheres. All that comes from instruments rather different from the usual 'band-instruments'. No guitars, only some tribal drums and the use of instruments such as violins, cellos, basses, clarinets, trumpets, french horns among a lot of others. So I must tell you, those of you who are searching for the latest thrashing piece of aggressive violence, take heed of this warning and search elsewhere. Those of you who are familiar with this stuff or are new but think they can take this, be my guest.

Draw the curtains, take a seat and turn the volume up. Or, if you aren't that patient, use it as background music and do something else while listening to it. Let this pierce your eardrums and let it ravage your mind, let it destroy the happiness of earlier times and then leave your dead eyes with nothing but remnants of what once was. The chaos is pretty structured in itself, and is also gifted with a good production, and that is exactly it's strong point. This is not chaotic for the sake of being chaotic, but rather structured well thought off to hit precisely where it hurts the most.

All in all this is a very interesting release. Hard to get into, maybe, and not really something you would want to listen to a couple of times in a row, but an interesting experience nonetheless.