After 15 years in the project, four albums and one EP, Les Anges De La Nuit are back with their fifth electro-darkwave studio album, 'The Witch.' Where have they been all this time? Hiding out the pandemic in South Florida, I presume. The band consists of songwriter, producer and vocalist Richard Abdeni and keyboardist Anthony Stuart. If you didn't know better, they sound as if they could be from the Left Bank of Paris. For an American band, they sound very French, and sometimes Abdeni sings in his native française as well.

The album is 14 tracks with 2 remixes and 2 edits for a total of 55 minutes. The band opens with its strongest and title track, "The Witch," which begins with an appropriately witchy Halloween sound effect witch cackle before launching into a medium-pace dancefloor stomper, with strong vocal and campy lyrics from Abdeni- "She walks into the night and holds on to the light, She runs out of my sight and goes on for a fight with fear. She wanders through the rear and whispers to my ears, A sign across her eyes, she has to say goodbye with tears...Here comes the witch, Long live the witch, Here comes the Witch, Long Live the Witch..." Good goth! This is a real hoot. Love it!

Too bad the rest of the album isn't as good as this. The follow-up track, "Trois Points de Suture" (in French of course) almost sounds like a different band. The vocals are pushed way back, and it sounds like Richard is singing down the hall...in another room. Anthony Stuart's synths are right up front and on target though. The second-best song on the album, "Voyage" is next. Once again lyrics are in French and the vocal isn't buried this time. Quite a charming French darkwave song. Throughout the album the mood is very dancefloor darkwavey, but Abdeni's subdued baritone vocals aren't bold enough to sustain interest throughout 14 tracks, and while Anthony Stuart does his darnedest to keep things sounding interesting musically, the songs tend to sound too similar from the mid-point on.

With the exception of "The Witch," the songs in French tend to sound better than the ones in English. There are times when the album veers into EBM territory, and it makes me wonder what Signal Aout 42 are up to these days (yeah, Belgian I know, but close enough). Still, in spite of its shortcomings, 'The Witch' still has merit. How many good French electro-darkwave bands are there still around these days anyway, especially ones that happen to be tucked away in the Miami area.