Publié dans Folkworld – Eelco Schilder
Article publié dans Folkworld – Eelco Schilder / février 2011
Three years after their Hypnogol album, the Belgian trio Aurelia is back with a fantastic new album.
Aurélie Dorzée on violin and vocals and multi instrumentalist/singer Tom Theuns are back with drummer and percussionist Stephan Pougin. Ten new compositions and two covers are the basic ingredients for this best album until today by this trio. With wonderful melodies, creative twists and a balanced mixture of folk, world, craziness and rock, Aurelia takes the Belgian folk to a whole new level.
I love Issa where a sweet melody turns into a small nightmare with great electronics and a drunken brother of Tom Waits who crawled on stage and sings along with the female singer. Great how the band switches from a song like that to El commandante which is a small, easy going acoustic folk tune and to chanson styled tracks like Le chat de la mazurka and Elle attend. And as easy they go back to a more psych output like Page which is followed by a beautiful version of Ave Maria sung by Laure Delcampe.
With this new album Aurelia proofs to be one of the most inventive European folk related groups. They go further were earlier groups like Ambrozijn and Olla vogala left us, they have the same atmosphere, at moments the same recognizable sound but in a totally new context. Totally different than a group like Aranis, but with the same creativity and intensity.
The Hour of the Wolf is proof again that a small country like Belgium is big in modern acoustic (more or less) folk related music.
