Sanatorium Altrosa is a companion piece to Sopor Aeternus’s Les Fleurs du Mal, containing an assortment of new tracks, remixes, and instrumental versions for your morbid listening pleasure.  Though instrumental versions of previously released songs are frequently just the same track with the vocals excised, the versions on Sanatorium Altrosa are noticeably different than the originals; each instrumental takes its own path, pulling the familiar sounds in new directions that likely would have been obscured underneath Anna-Varney’s peculiar, spellbinding vocals.  Perhaps the most intriguing of the tracks on the album are the new pieces “Consider This” and “Architecture II.”  “Consider This” appears in three forms, first as a instrumental that builds from militaristic drumming to a funeral procession, reappears midway through the album with lyrics, and brings the record to an infuriated conclusion.  “Architecture II” stems from the suggestive material found on Les Fleurs du Mal, but amps up the sauciness to a new level.  Of course, this wouldn’t be a limited-edition Sopor Aeternus release without a bewildering package.  Sanatorium Altrosa comes housed in a slim hardcover book that is filled with gorgeously muted photographs in the style of Victorian mourning art.  But then, that’s the Sopor Aeternus way—no mere remix album, an objet d’art.

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