After Sortilège essentially split in two about five years ago, the version of the band fronted by Christian ‘Zouille’ Augustin it the only one that managed to put together some new material. Obviously, with a band legendary enough to be able to just keep touring as a legacy act, there may sometimes be some label or management pressure involved, and 2023’s ‘Apocalypso’ occasionally felt like that, which is all the more reason to be pleasantly surprised by the approach that Augustin’s Sortilège takes on ‘Le Poids de l’Âme’. This is simply how traditional heavy metal should sound in 2025.

Contrary to what the first paragraph may imply, I actually quite liked ‘Apocalypso’, but at times, it felt like it was designed to be an Augustin solo album rather than an actual Sortilège album. The modern power metal influences gelled quite well with his voice – which fortunately has not lost any of its power – but multiple moments felt like a carefully arranged studio project rather than the work of a band. On ‘Le Poids de l’Âme’, Sortilège unequivocally sounds like a band. All the songs are riff-based first and foremost, and the song structures sound much more focused.

What really helps ‘Le Poids de l’Âme’ be this good is the fact that neither Olivier Spitzer nor newcomer Michaël Zurita are overly flashy guitarists. There are some cool solos on the album, but that’s not the focus here. Unlike many contemporary power metal guitarists, both of them are actually really good at handling the meat-and-potatoes riff work. And while those riffs are similar to something a band like Judas Priest or Riot would do around 1980, the production makes ‘Le Poids de l’Âme’ sound surprisingly modern, to the point that the album is likely to appeal to fans of the likes of Rage, Grave Digger or Primal Fear.

Slight exceptions to that are the fantastic ‘Horizons’, which with its downtuned theatricality is as close to modern power metal as the album gets, and ‘Origines’, which almost sounds like a nineties-style alternative rock ballad. Other standout tracks include the relatively aggressive ‘Colère’ and the melodic mastery of ‘Sans Foi ni Loi’. ‘L’Alchimiste’ and ‘La Forge Divine’ are great old school heavy metal tracks, while the title track shows that Sortilège can sound just as convincing at a slightly slower tempo. If anything, it gives Augustin more room to excel. The piano-driven power ballad ‘Le Monde de l’Oubli’ closes the album in style.

‘Le Poids de l’Âme’ sounds much closer to what eighties Sortilège would have sounded like in this century than ‘Apocalypso’ did. Strangely, it might actually sound more so than the 2021 collection of re-recordings ‘Phoenix’ did. Honestly, if you like traditional heavy metal, but are often disappointed by what newer bands – or, more realistically, their producers – make of it, you owe it to yourself to hear this album. With riffs of this quality and Augustin in top shape, I think the French heavy metal legends might have a few more great albums left in them.

Recommended tracks: ‘Horizons’, ‘Colère’, ‘Sans Foi ni Loi’