Les Fleurs du Mal (Therion album)

chronology
Les Fleurs du Mal
Studio album from Therion
Publication ; (s)	2013
Title (number)	15th
running time	45 min. 15 sec.
occupation	Christofer Johnsson :; Christian Vidal: electric guitar; Nalle Pahlsson: electric bass; Johan Kullberg: drums; Thomas Vikstrom: vocals; Lori Lewis: vocals;
production	Christofer Johnsson
Studio (s)	Adulruna Studio

Les Fleurs du Mal is the 14th studio album by the Swedish symphonic metal band Therion , which was released in 2012 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the band's founding as the successor to the album Sitra Ahra . It consists exclusively of cover versions of French chansons from the 1960s and 1970s. The album title is based on the work of the same name Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire .

description

The album is special in the history of Therion in several respects. It is the first studio album that consists exclusively of cover versions and is sung entirely in a language other than English, as well as the first album since the 1996 album Theli , which was not released by the Nuclear Blast label. The latter arose from the fact that Nuclear Blast didn't want to take any chances in financing such a daring album. Band leader Christofer Johnsson , who had the idea for the album in the first place, decided to take out a loan and pay for the production himself. According to his own statements, he needed 75,000 euros for the recording and production of the CD alone . However, he hoped for as many direct sales as possible during the Flowers of Evil tour and calculated that self-publishing yields around ten times more profit than a label. In addition to this direct sale, the album was also released in normal store sales as well as the nowadays usual sale via online music services . In addition to the normal version, the album is also sold as a limited special edition as a digipak with a bonus track called Les sucettes .

The cover versions are all based on French songs, which mainly belong to chanson and pop music . In the reinterpretation, the typical elements of symphonic metal for the band were incorporated, and according to the booklet, an orchestra with 20 members is also involved in this album . Given by the original versions, the songs are unusually short for Therion, ranging from 2 minutes 14 seconds to 4 minutes 31 seconds between the shortest and the longest piece.

Cover, booklet and CD design

The entire artwork on the CD is based on numerous pictures by the Italian artist Saturno Buttò and his typical motifs, which are characterized by sacred and sadomasochistic eroticism.

The cover shows three mostly bare women, each with a different type of injury. The woman on the left holds a razor in her hand while her thighs are marked with cuts, the middle one holds two roses in her hands, while blood runs from stitches on her forearms and the woman on the right is represented with arrows through her chest and head . An additional provocation arises from the fact that all three women wear a halo .

In the booklet , some pictures show practices from the BDSM scene, others show a woman with goat horns. The latter is often used to represent the devil . With only six lyrics , the booklet contains less than half of all the lyrics on the album. It ends with a list of the contributors and some thanks from the band. The fact that this one also mentions Nuclear Blast suggests that the relationship between the band and the record label is still okay, as the rumor spread that the label had separated from the band. The back of the booklet shows a naked woman sitting on a bed, who is holding a picture behind her back, which shows the astronomical symbol of Saturn . The same photo of the naked woman with the picture currently adorns the background of the official Therion homepage. Due to the enlarged representation on the homepage in contrast to the booklet, it can be seen that the crossbar of the Saturn symbol itself consists of the word Saturn .

The CD itself is kept simple in the colors black and gray and shows a symbol of an 11-cornered star that is typical for the band. The band has already used this symbol, also known as the hendekagram , on the covers of numerous albums such as Theli , Lucid Dreaming , Vovin and Secret of the Runes .

The limited special edition has its own booklet that differs from the normal edition in terms of the cover and back. The picture of a long-haired woman with a burning heart incised on her breast was chosen as the picture on the back of the booklet, which is also included in the booklet of the normal version, but there under the song Lilith .

Music videos

Music videos were shot for the three songs Poupée de cire, poupée de son , Je n'ai besoin que de tendresse and J'ai le mal de toi , which are also freely available on the band's official YouTube channel. The first two videos mentioned are set in a small bar and show a staged concert by the band in front of some fans of the metal scene . At Poupée de cire, poupée de son , the guests sit peacefully at their tables at first and mostly watch the band on the small stage, bored; a woman yawns, a man points his finger in the direction of the stage, and the people are engaged in conversations. There follows a minute-long scene in which the guests toast with their alcoholic drinks and then drink them. Due to the effects of the alcohol, people find more and more pleasure in the concert and begin to laugh and slightly headbang . The disinhibiting effect of alcohol can also be seen in a couple who initially sit kissing in the bar, but shortly afterwards disappear into one of the toilets and have sexual intercourse there. Meanwhile an argument breaks out between two men in the bar, which ends in a fight, to the amusement of the other guests, who stand in a circle and watch the fight and cheer. The clip ends with short successive scenes between the couple in the toilet, the fight and a young woman who, heavily drunk, collapses in the middle of the bar and throws up on the floor.

In the music video Je n'ai besoin que de tendresse , the same guests can be seen partying from the start, some of them headbanging wildly right in front of the stage. The mood is further heated when two go -go dancers enter a cage and start dancing on a pole . This clip also shows the couple having sex in the toilet. In contrast to the first, this song is sung by Thomas Vikström and not Lori Lewis; she retreats into a room with the man who showed her the first clip the finger. There she slips into the role of the dominatrix and obviously begins to punish him for this obscenity by whipping him . This video also ends again with the same woman from the first music video lying on the floor, vomiting; In the meantime, she could be seen dancing well again in the bar in short scenes.

The music video for J'ai le mal de toi deals thematically with the suicide of Betty Mars , the original interpreter of the song. Betty Mars is played by Therion singer Lori Lewis, who alternates between lying and sitting on a bed and writes her farewell letter . These scenes are interrupted with recordings of Thomas Vikström, who strolls singing in a cemetery amidst various sculptures. After Betty Mars wrote down the words Adieu mes amis et mon amour , she can be seen walking out onto the balcony of her apartment with a glass of wine and climbing onto the railing. After taking another sip, she drops the glass on the balcony; then she jumps down from the balcony. The last recordings of the clip show Betty Mars falling, Thomas Vikström again in the cemetery and then a dedication in memory of the band to Betty Mars. The fact that Betty Mars killed himself by jumping out of her apartment is true, but in reality the jump took place out of a window. Likewise, the last words shown in the clip are a free interpretation of the band.

Like the album itself, all three video clips were financed by Christofer Johnsson himself.

Track list

#	title	length	Original composer	Original interpreter	Original appearance
1.	Poupée de cire, poupée de son	2:51	Serge Gainsbourg	France Gall	1965
2.	Une fleur dans le coeur	3:03		Victoire Scott
3.	Initials BB	3:44	Serge Gainsbourg	Serge Gainsbourg
4th	Mon amour, mon ami	4:35		Marie Laforêt
5.	Polichinelle	2:28		France Gall
6th	La Maritza	3:54		Sylvie Vartan
7th	Sœur Angélique	3:05		Annie Philippe	1967
8th.	Dis-moi poupée	3:24		Isabelle	1968
9.	Lilith	2:30		Leonie
10.	En Alabama	2:39		Leonie
11.	Wahala Manitou	2:34		Leonie
12.	Je n'ai besoin que de tendresse	2:14		Claire Dixon	1967
13.	La Licorne d'or	2:45		Victoire Scott
14th	J'ai le mal de toi	2:51		Betty Mars	1974
15th	Poupée de cire, poupée de son	2:31	Serge Gainsbourg	France Gall
16.	Les sucettes ( bonus title )	2:40	Serge Gainsbourg	France Gall

reception

Therion itself lists links to other homepages with reviews on their homepage. At the same time, she lists the statistics that of the 113 linked reviews, 78% have positive and 22% negative or average receptions on the album. The different opinions about the album can also be seen, for example, in the Soundcheck from Powermetal.de , in which it received a very large range of ratings between 2.0 and 9.0.

The band was widely praised for the courage to write such an album, as it poses a considerable risk, especially with regard to the acceptance of the French language by a mostly English and German-speaking fan base.

“Musicians are often asked to have courage - courage to innovate, to transcend genre boundaries. […] LES FLEURS DU MAL is such an experiment. And that the record is so surprising is astonishing in itself, after all, boss Christofer Johnsson is really not known for repetition. What he is serving us as a gift for Therion's 25th band anniversary is, however, blatant material even for his standards. "

- Metal hammer

Regarding the vocals, not all critics could make friends with the voice of singer Lori Lewis:

“Even the first song is just incredibly exhausting because of Lori's singing. [...] The hair on the back of my neck stand up with the pitch. "

- Laut.de

"The singers' singing is too opulent, too overloaded for my taste."

- rocking boy magazine

Others, however, praised her voice:

"'Polichinelle' increases the tempo and is also a great arrangement with brilliant vocals by Lori Lewis"

- metalinside.ch

Thomas Vikström's singing caused controversy , especially with the song Je n'ai besoin que de tendresse :

"On the other hand, I would assume a total failure with Je n'ai besoin que de tendresse, in which singer Thomas Vikström destroys the so laboriously harmonious sound image [...] by completely exaggerated head voices melodies by Rob Halford [...]"

- time-for-metal.eu

"Really powermetallig it is at, depending N'ai Besoin Que De Tendresse 'and Thomas sings in unprecedented heights in the style of Rob Halford."

- metalinside.ch

A rather typical criticism, which various Therion albums had to deal with before, is the statement that the music does not reveal itself to the listener at the first listen:

“This definitely causes great irritation in the first run, [...] and has to listen to the songs again and again in order to be able to grasp their entire bipolarity. So the album needs several runs, but that's what you are used to from Therion. "

- time-for-metal.eu

"Yes, you have to get involved with the concept and consciously listen to the whole thing a few times, [...]"

- Powermetal.de

Web links

Official Therion website: Les Fleurs du Mal album

Les Fleurs du Mal at Allmusic

Les Fleurs du Mal at Discogs

Individual evidence

↑ Christofer Johnsson: Important news ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , September 14, 2012, accessed May 13, 2013. @1@ 2

↑ ^a ^b Michael Edele: Artistic demands are only enough for the dog whistle. Laut.de , accessed on May 12, 2013 .

↑ Official Therion homepage: background image ( memento of the original from June 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.

↑ Therionofficial , accessed on May 13, 2013.

^ Therion - Je n'ai besoin que de tendresse , accessed on May 13, 2013.

↑ France Gall - Poupée De Cire Poupée De Son at Discogs (English)

↑ Annie Philippe - Soeur Angélique (in: C'Est La Mode) at Discogs (English)

↑ Isabelle - Dis Moi Poupée at Discogs (English)

↑ Claire Dixon - Je N'ai Besoin Que De Tendresse at Discogs (English)

↑ Betty Mars - J'ai Le Mal De Toi (in: Betty Mars) at Discogs (English)