Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Anaon" means "Dead" (death?) in the Breton language, so it's nice to see a French band doing something culturally logical, rather than trying their hardest to grasp at a faceless "Celtic" or "Norse" lyrical/image concept. Especially since the band are from the ancient Celt town of Quimper, which I know for a fact is on the east coast of Brittany, as I've had the chance to travel through there before. The rest of the lyrics are in French though, and don't necessarily follow what you'd expect.

The band alternate between sometimes Bathory style black metal, with guitars that grind a good deal more though, and technical keyboard/clean breaks. I'm not that big a fan of when the band are going full ahead black metal to tell you the truth. The vocals sound like they were recorded in a bathroom: they have a hollow, uninteresting tone to them. And the guitars hardly come up with the finest of riffs.

For whatever reason, Anaon are rather proficient when they're going slow without distortion, or when the keyboards take control. Don't ask me why this is, but it's rather obvious that the finest parts of the disc belong to these moments.

So give it a try I say. It's a huge improvement over the early material, and a few tracks here and there really stick out nicely. If the CD budget is tight though, I guarantee you that "Les Rites de Cromlech" can be lived without…

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