Après la Nuit, formerly Les Anges De La Nuit, is back with a new album, 'Are You Ready For Love,' and according to their Facebook page, the band's single "Dolce Vita" just entered the Official German Alternative charts at Number 2. Impressive. I had written a review of this album a week ago and completely scrapped it after re-listening to the album. Guess I wasn't in the mood. I reviewed Les Anges De La Nuit's'The Witch' album back in 2020 and since then there have been some changes- keyboardist Anthony Stuart is gone, Marilyn B. has been added as a vocalist and now Richard Abdeni handles songwriting, production and vocals. While this band is still steeped in the Goth-Electro genre, some production changes are evident somewhat altering their sound.

Most noticeable is the vocal treatment, or lack of it. On the previous album review I sort of complained the vocals sounded too distant; now they assuredly don't. They are mostly recorded dry, with little in the way of effects. This is both a boon and a bane. The voices tend to sit atop the music rather than blend in, so hearing/understanding the words is a lot easier, but aesthetically, there are times they sound demo-ish. Also, Richard's and Marilyn's voices don't always mesh well in some places. Three songs ("Mon Amour," "Dolce Vita" and "Bye Bye Mon Petit Frere") are sung in French, and the rest in English. Truth be told, I think they do better with the French, with a couple exceptions. The group's three big (charting) songs from the album are "Mon Amour," "Dolce Vita" and title track "Are You Ready For Love." They are all good, but their revised version of "The Witch" on this album "The Second Witch" (with Marilyn's voice added) still trumps the rest. The aforementioned 3 songs all get remixes (boosting the number of tracks to 15), which for me, is usually a mixed blessing. Out of the five remixes the Mark Loodewijk remix of "Mon Amour" and the Cyborgdrive remix of "Are You Ready For Love" are the best. Loodewijk's remix boosts the instrumental and rhythmic aspects of the song for the dancefloor, and Cyborgdrive somehow makes not so strong vocals sound quite potent.

Some of the other songs on the album are lesser entities, but I did enjoy the instrumental "March of the Agnus Die". Over all 'Are You Ready For Love' is a pretty good album but could have been stronger in the vocal department. I don't suppose Marilyn B. could have been the same Marilyn B. of NYC Mudd Club and Otto Von Ruggins' Kongress underground fame. If so, that would indeed be strange, but rather interesting.