Track By Tracks: Angellore - Nocturnes (2026)

1. Falling Birds:

Walran (synths, vocals): This was the first song Rosarius (guitars, synths, vocals) and I wrote for the album, back in February 2017, three years before the release of our third album Rien Ne Devait Mourir. It may sound a bit strange, but that’s usually how things go with Angellore. While recording an album or working on the final stages of the mix, we often feel the urge to start writing again and gather material for the future.

The song began in the old-school way, just like in the early days of the band: Rosarius and I alone, with a keyboard, a guitar, and a computer to record our ideas on the fly. Our initial intention was to write something that would perfectly embody what gothic death doom metal means to us. Rosarius started fiddling with the guitar, playing harmonies that somehow reminded us of Widow’s Weed, the first Tristania album – an album that we all worship. But after a while, he stopped, unconvinced by the direction and feeling it wasn’t going anywhere. For me, it was a bit of a shock: for the very first time in our long-standing collaboration, neither of us had a strong melodic idea to build upon. It was also the moment I realized that, after three albums, we had to be more selective with our ideas and avoid rehashing the same things over and over.

As we were trying to come up with something more compelling, Rosarius moved to the piano. He played a sad and beautiful melody I had heard many times before. I said something along the lines of, “If only this weren’t a cover, we could totally write a song around it.” That’s when he told me the melody was actually his own! Something he had written as a small “soundtrack” for one of his books, intended for a video that never came to life. It just sounded familiar to my ears because I had heard him playing it so many times before.

What a great surprise!

From that point on, the song seemed to flow effortlessly and came together very quickly. It’s quite rare for us not to rely on lush keyboards throughout, as we love that so much. But this time, we felt the atmosphere would be stronger if they only appeared at key moments, allowing the song to breathe and feel more organic, almost folk-like.

For the bridge, we reused an idea originally meant for ‘Blood For Lavinia’, a song from the previous album. We both loved that part, but I wanted ‘Blood For Lavinia’ to be more straightforward, so I suggested we keep it aside for later. It turned out to fit ‘Falling Birds’ perfectly. After that initial session, I came back home with a finished rough demo and a solid structure, which allowed me to start working on the lyrics and vocal melodies. The music called for something deeply romantic, imbued with nostalgia. I imagined an old woman waking up in the middle of the night, disoriented, walking barefoot in her nightgown toward a ruined castle she once knew in its former splendor. Perhaps she had attended a ball there, danced with someone, wandered through the gardens beneath the moonlight, and fallen in love… It’s up to the listener to shape their own story, but that was my vision. The ‘Falling Birds’ are the memories that, sadly, are leaving her over time. It was a great pleasure to rehearse the song with the band, and every musician added his own ideas to the mix.

We have three guest musicians on this track: our friends Gunnar and Ségolène, who already appeared on the previous album, playing oboe and flute, and – for the first time in Angellore’s history – Dirk Goossens on bass clarinet. He’s a friend of mine from Belgium who came to the studio to record his part. It took longer to set up the microphones than for him to actually play his parts! Everything went smoothly, and he delivered immediately. This is probably my favorite song on the album… And in our entire discography.

2. Black Sun River:

Rosarius: It is June 2020. Our fourth album is well underway; most of the compositions are already taking shape, and for some time now, we’ve often found ourselves thinking that it might be nice to breathe a little air into the tracklist with a more “rock”-oriented, punchier song. So one day, when I finally have a moment to devote to this idea, I sit down at my computer and start building a song around a chorus that’s been haunting me for a while. “Shivering, shivering”. Something cold, gripping, born from all those years spent listening to The 69 Eyes, For My Pain…, or Lacrimas Profundere’s Ave End and Filthy Notes era. My enduring obsession!

In the end, the track refused to confine itself to a neat three-and-a-half-minute pop format (after all, we are Angellore, and brevity has never been our strongest suit!). The chorus called for a post-chorus, and that post- chorus naturally unfolded in a vein that, I believe, will unmistakably evoke the early days of Sirenia (At Sixes and Sevens remains one of my all-time favorite albums).

As for the lyrics, they came quite naturally. I wanted to write about a love in mourning, playing with the ambiguity of point of view; the voice singing is unsure whether it belongs to the one who has died or to the one who has lost the love of their life. It is, in essence, the story of a journey toward the fragment of your soul without which existence becomes unbearable.

3. Forsaken Fairytale:

Walran: I originally wrote this song in the summer of 2010 for my personal project, Betray-Ed. I remember being incredibly excited about it. I was completely absorbed and couldn’t focus on anything else! I had my nieces, who were 12 and 15 at the time, sing on it. Rosarius loved the song and was very enthusiastic about the idea of adapting it for Angellore. One evening, he even surprised me by sending a beautifully rearranged version of one of the verses sung by Lucia. From that moment on, I was convinced it was the right decision. As it is a folk-oriented piece with acoustic instrumentation, with doom and gothic metal in good measure, I thought it would definitely serve the album. Actually, it was one of the last songs we worked on, and I don’t think we rehearsed it much as a full band before entering the studio. We knew we wanted a different intro from the 2010 version, so I asked Rosarius to play some chords in a black metal style, fading in and out to create a ghostly atmosphere. The effect was great, but the section lasted almost a minute and made the song feel like it had too many introductions before it truly began. After a lot of back and forth, we eventually decided to remove this part entirely.

I really enjoyed writing what became the new intro – the flute and guitar part – and it was Celin’s idea to add the ebow part at the end, which brings an extra layer of beauty and mystery. To my surprise, we stayed quite faithful to the original Betray-Ed version, mostly expanding upon it. I had long envisioned the doom metal lead in the middle of the song, while Rosarius and I wrote the bridge with extreme vocals directly in the studio. He also improvised most of the acoustic and electric guitar solos at the end and did a fantastic job! We also had a fun time guiding Lucia toward a more “witchy” approach in the verses. Déhà and Rosarius coached her, and once she found the right tone, she fully embraced it.

Lyrically, this song is just talking about a character who wanders in the forest and stumbles upon a beautiful sleeping lady. That person immediately falls in love with her, but then, once out of the forest, feels like this might have only been a dream. At the end of his (or her) life, this person remembers and realizes how meaningful and surreal this experience was.

For a long time, though, the song felt unfinished or not quite as strong as it could be. At one point, I was even considering removing it from the album. I’m very glad we didn’t, and that we put in the work needed to elevate it to the level of the other tracks. I now believe it’s a beautiful piece. The cello parts were added at the very last minute, when we were almost done mixing, but they bring so much to the song. It would have been a real loss without them.

4. Martyrium:

Walran: Like ‘Forsaken Fairytale’, this song was originally written for another project, of Rosarius this time. As it was darkwave, there were no guitars at all, and the song was sung entirely in French. Rosarius had wanted to “Angellorize” it for quite some time. I wasn’t sure how the gothic riff – originally played on bass – would translate to guitars, but it didn’t take long to convince me it would work perfectly. It was a real pleasure to work on the black metal middle section, which wasn’t part of the original demo. The chord progression is somewhat unusual for Angellore, and I believe it features the fastest blast beats in the band’s history!

Rosarius gave me a theme for the new set of lyrics – a cruel woman and a romantic young man dying of love for her, in an almost vampiric way – and I thoroughly enjoyed developing it. The ending of the original version was slow; we decided to make it even slower, with Lucia handling the vocals. Rosarius then wrote this long, mesmerizing solo. To me, it’s one of the album’s finest moments. I’m very happy with the lyrics, and the way Lucia delivers them still sends chills down my spine.

5. A Dormant Stream:

Walran: After the experience of writing ‘Falling Birds’, we realized it was now better not to start entirely from scratch, but rather from ideas that already existed. I had this demo called ‘Follow My Light’ in my files, which I strongly believed in. Rosarius liked some parts of it, so we decided to keep the best elements and rebuild the song together in the classic Angellore way.

The result is, I think, a very balanced blend of our respective styles and ideas. For a long time, Rosarius had wanted to include a long, slow symphonic break in the middle of a song, but I was always a bit hesitant, fearing it might be a bit boring or dull. Then we discovered the Norwegian band Omits, and I completely fell in love with their song ‘Insolence’. It showed me how elegantly it could be done, so I gave him the green light. He still considers the guitar solo at the end of that section to be his favorite Angellore solo. The riff in the heavier part is also a subtle nod to the French progressive band Arrakeen, whom I admire greatly.

Once again, it was a pleasure to work with our guest musicians, as the oboe, flute, and cello truly elevate the whole piece. You can never replace the warmth and ‘humanity’ of folk instruments with VST sounds… We also spent quite some time trying to find the perfect acoustic guitar sound for the introduction, and it was quite a struggle.

The lyrics are a bit different from what I usually write, although the main theme is very much Angellore. It’s about something we all feel at times – crushing loneliness, feeling misplaced, misunderstood, or just disgusted by all the ugly sides of life. How great would it be, then, to escape, disappear from plain sight, wander through the stars, and experience some sort of lucid dreaming? Visions of majesty and chaos intertwined? But would it be possible to find a way out, then? Would you want to come back or, rather, dissolve into it?

Another interesting moment is the final vocal section. I initially had a rhythmic idea for the lyrics that felt right to me – but was, in fact, quite boring and uninspired. The band encouraged me to try something different in the studio, and they were absolutely right, as the new approach was much more interesting. The song wasn’t originally meant to end with a double-pedal-driven rhythm, but our drummer, Ronnie, felt strongly about it. In the end, I’m very glad he stood his ground and talked us into it, because it now feels like a chariot of death disappearing into an ominous veil of fog.

It’s probably the darkest, most merciless ending we’ve ever written. There is no hope here! This is also Celin’s favorite song in the entire Angellore discography.

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