Customer Reviews

Thorgal

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

The concept album Thorgal is filled to the brim with intelligent compositions, well-crafted arrangements, beautiful and heart-rending melodies and a couple of definitely Deep Forest-sounding tunes. And unlike many "new-age" albums, the music of Thorgal never fails to find the delicate balance between soothing ambiences, irresistible melodies and powerful rhythms.

Besides the mesmerizing rhythm loops, gorgeous synthetic backwashes, twinkling electronic noises and ominous sampled chants, you will also find plenty of acoustic guitars, pianos, flutes, pipes and violins, all very competently and brilliantly used for the instrumental passages.

Relentless synthetic drums and drones more or less dominate the entire bottom end of the sonic spectrum, while the complex melodies are flawlessly performed by crystal clear and angelic female voices. On tracks like "Jolan" and "Louve", the overdubbed voices are not just plain beautiful but simply spine-chilling. Except for the track "Shaïgan sans merci" with its suggestive narration, all male voices are heavily transformed, warbled, synthesized and vocoded. All the lyrics are in French (except for the chorus of the track "Aaricia", which for some reason is partly in English), and the entire album is indeed very French sounding.

Hardly any of the tracks fall short of being complete masterpieces of their own. There are one or two slightly cheesy tracks ("La Mémoire des Vivants") and one apparently unfinished song ("Les Elfes"), but they are more than well compensated by the rest of the songs containing unexpected turns and twists and totally irresistible hooks.

I find it hard to understand why this album should be so difficult to find in stores outside France - surely it must appeal to a much larger audience than readers of the Thorgal comic series. What the composers of the Thorgal album (mainly Éric Mouquet, Philippe Malempré and Henri-Denis Golenvaux) managed to create is a highly impressing musical project, far greater than the comic series itself and definitely more successful than any other similar projects I have heard so far.

I can't really find anything wrong with this album and if I could give it more than five stars, I would gladly do so.

I learnt about this CD 2 or 3 years ago whilst with my Grandparents in the south of France. Ever since I saw the advert I wanted to buy it, so I did. Great music that can make you feel alot better after a hard day of mind-killing Engineering Thermodynamics and trying to go over it with Thorgal, great. There is a richness about the music that is very rare to find, it is one to try for sure. I received the CD much faster than I expected and my house mates love it too, it is different to what they listen to noramlly. I recommend it to everyone who likes to try something different and has any type of musical taste.

This is a very nice soundtrack for a stunning comic book series. I can't praise it enough. It is simply the best. It is just such a pity that no one really seems to know about this incredible series.

I collect the (French BD)'comic' books of Thorgal. Having read them, numerous times, I was reluctant to listen to someone else's version of what they felt was appropriate music for 'Thorgal'. Like when you read a book, then see the movie and find it really different from what you imagined for yourself. Happily, I found the music to be so complimentary that my intital fear of it not being 'good enough' went right out the window. The music team on this CD obviously did their homework. It is an asset to the books and only compliments them, not to mention that it stands alone as it's own wonderful music.

This Cd is easily one of the top 10 CDs of my 300+ collection. Eric Mouquet & Cie did a marvelous job. Deep forest fans will surely enjoy it. I have listened to it almost everyday since it arrived from Amazon.fr.

Great job!