This album has been in my cd-player for quite some times, and I find it nevertheless hard to describe. Le Testament de la Lumière is a promising sounding bandname. Despite the French, this seems to the debut of a German project, previously released as a limited cd-r on their own Noizeworks label. The photos of graves in the booklet and the album title forecast a grave, solemn atmosphere, which is fulfilled by the music. On the intro track a male opera-like voice sings on top of organ church music, with rolling drums added later. The second untitled piece is a dark ambient piece, in the best Raison d’Etre tradition, with classical strings and deep basses, in which the tranquility is disturbed by the warning sounds of sirens. The following track fuses a slow ritual rhythm with dark percussion and some noisy sounds. Each of the ten tracks seems to have different elements, but still it has coherent feel.
When listening to the album you can hear that the tracks have been made with patience and dedication. “Der Tod ist ein treuer Kamerad” is a rich album, with manty different sounds and styles and a dark, cold atmosphere. The atrocities of war are constantly just belwo the surface, but in a subtle manner. The base of the music is Cold Meat- like dark ambient and deep, dark drones, with oldschool industrial and classical sounds and some martial/ritual elements added to the interesting soundstructures. There are no vocals present, except for (nostalgic) samples. An album which you have to give some time to appreciate, and without tracks that directly stand out, but certainly an impressive peice of work.
