Les chevaux de feu
Les gardiens du grand secret
Verbum, lux et vita
Le voile levé
Leontin Voigt Abilgaard
De la nécessité de se taire
Frayeurs initiatiques
Pourquoi... toujours pourquoi
L'opposition tacite
Le quatre-heure de cristal
Le principe immuable

Thank you Lord. Thank you Jo. Thank you His Divine Grace. For I am truly blessed. Blessed because I have received this latest release from His Divine Grace to review (although I would have bought a copy myself anyway). Blessed because I have the opportunity to spread once more the word on this act whose last release "Eurydice" [read review here] sent me into spasms of unrelenting joy. I will speak and you must listen for there is much you need to know…

"Le Grand Secret" is released by the German Reue Um Reue record label. The music is inspired by the works of the Traditionalists and the lives and deaths of Leontin V Abilgaard and Sekens Murdock. According to legend S Murdock was stabbed to death by millions of words bursting out of a book during his studies on the great conspiracy led by what he called the ‘dots and bars’. L V Abilgaard slashed his wrists in his bath during a reading of S Murdock’s writing about the ‘dots and bars conspiracy’. The ten tracks on this release are split into three parts dealing with S Murdock, L V Abilgaard and the Synthese et Syncretisme. Musically this is a gloomy atmospheric recording not unlike the immense "Die Schlangenkonigin" release. Featuring startling electronic ambience, distant foreign spoken worded passages, spatial drones, some rhythmic works, Industrial clanking, slow rumbling dubs, heavenly musical interludes and ending in a minimalist tour de force of simplicity "Le Grand Secret" has it all. And like all good secrets there’s so much more to discover and unearth. The way His Divine Grace meticulously and expertly works within the framework on each track is, quite frankly and without a shred of bullshit, stunning in the extreme. Whether laying down the sweetest of black ambience or upping the ante with ruminative slightly experimental expressive passages the complete work is a hugely impressive and gratifying aural experience.

I admit to being a convert to the music of His Divine Grace. I’ve spent many an hour with the back catalogue of releases letting the music fully envelope my being. No matter what form the music takes the results are always the same. Sheer bliss. The sort of feeling only the strongest of illegal drugs could ever produce but without the come down effects. "Le Grande Secret" follows in this tradition and is unquestionably phenomenal in every respect. Limited to only 500 copies and enclosed in a 3 panel digi-pak I implore you not to let this release slip from your grasp. You’ll thank me in the end if you listen to my advice.

ANM