Dark Sanctuary - Royaume mélancolique (1999) - Background music for yoga and meditation - 70% (18/06/11)

"Dark Sanctuary" deliver a very relaxing and calm piece of dark ambient music with a reduced number and variety of instruments that focuses on an atmosphere that perfectly fits to the title that suggests a melancholic empire. The band's sound is neither close to classic music nor to any form of metal but an introspective kind of ambient dark wave music that fits as background music to rainy autumn nights or thoughtful times of solitude.

The poetic and well crafted French lyrics are quite deep and interesting for anyone that is interested in artistic literature or exotic music. Musically, the album is not only calm but also very slow which is somewhat a problem because the band is able to find atmospheric and intense melodies but repeats them over several minutes without developing on those good approaches. While the first songs seem to be hypnotizing and may still pardon for this slow moments of tranquility, this tactic doesn't work on the length of the entire album and the band doesn't change the formula at all and refuses to vary in any kind of direction. There are no touching vocal passages, no haunting instrumental solos, no surprising mid tempo or fast passages and the first touches of atmosphere and mystery vanish quite fast. That's why I can't pick any song and describe it in detail and simply suggest you to listen to a couple of songs right on from the beginning to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Other ambient bands like the weird and mysterious "Rosa Crux" or the quite diversified "Die Verbrannten Kinder Evas" and even more popular artists like the very spiritual "Enya" or the more folk influenced legend "Loreena McKennitt" simply add something more to their calm and hypnotizing sound to keep the attention high. Even for fans of classic music, there are bands and projects such as "Adiemus", the more medieval "Era" or the more popular and electronic "Enigma" that could please to fans of dark pop music as well as to the gothic maniacs. "Dark Sanctuary" are simplistic and remain in their unique style based on keyboards and a couple of soft violins or pipers as well as on soft, fragile and not disturbing female vocals for too long and can't get a higher status as a good band for peaceful background music or dark and intellectual movie scores.

Even though I personally tend to prefer the numerous bands and artists I have listed up in this review and would normally give only a voting around fifty percent, I still must underline the simplistic originality of this band that is rare to find nowadays and that may be a true pleasure and treasure for introspective people that like to have moments of pure tranquility. This quality is worth around ninety percent easily. If I would ever decide to try out some yoga or some meditation on a regular basis, I would remember this band and this album and purchase it. I don't mean this in an ironic way but I'm very honest and tend to underline that one must be in a very calm and spiritual state of mind to fully enjoy this music which is a very rare case for me. But I take the band's style as it is and honour their very unique efforts and that's why I give this album the exact rating between my personal appreciation and the more objective quality rating.