A metalband with strong oriental influences?
Well, my mind directly went to an Orphaned Land comparison as this is the only other band with this sort of Middle Eastern influence that I know of, but comparing the two wouldn’t exactly be fair; it would roughly translate to comparing Pink Floyd to Pantera. Arkan doesn’t (at least as far as I could hear) have the strong prog feel as the other band, but instead they pave their way with aggression and heavy riffing. And other stuff.

To be fair, there turned out to be a lot of the so called other stuff going on as well. Even though male vocalist/guitarist Florent Jannier kept on with his deep growling for all of his parts, he was ever so often counter-parted by the lofty, clean singing of Sarah Layssac. I would even go so far as to say that they sang equally much, or at least very close.
Every so often the music would change its character as well, going from the aforementioned heavy death sound to more ethnic rhythms and melodies with an acoustic touch. This leads me to one thing which made me wonder throughout the show however, and it was that there was an acoustic guitar placed on a stand on the stage next to guitarist Mus El Kamal, but every time we heard acoustic guitar-play, it was only played from tape over the p.a. Why then bother with the guitar?
Well, it was finally used during a solo of one of the final songs of the set, but I still feel it was a bit overkill to have it standing there through the entire show just for that short passage.

Anyway, that’s side-tracking, so let’s get back to the actual action.
Le Bataclan was already well-filled with people, but even though the crowd was taking the band in rather calmly, probably awaiting the main act, this didn’t stop Arkan in giving a very lively show where they tried to get the audience going as much as they could. As all of their comments were in French I have no idea what they were saying, except for the many ‘merci’ and the single ‘Paradise Lost’, but I’m sure the many natives could follow just fine, and the band was rewarded with a few appreciative shouts which became louder as the show wore on.
Up on stage, we were being entertained by a band which clearly had quite a good presence, and even though Jannier tried to keep his wicked sneer he couldn’t help but break up in a sincere smile once in a while. The other musicians did what musicians do most, headbang the hell out of their necks, and Layssac completed the oriental circle by adding some belly-dancing moves which worked well, but would probably have benefitted from a slightly larger stage area.

What with Paradise Lost’s relationship with Orphaned Land it was not odd to see them bring Arkan along for the show, and even though I had had my doubts whether or not a support band was even needed for this kind of show, I actually ended up glad that they did.
This is a band which can clearly perform well, keep a good contact with the audience (even though I didn’t understand most of it) and have some catchy songs to boot. Not a bad combination; at least it turned the warmth and the atmosphere of Le Bataclan up high this night, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them again further down the road.
Oh, and a last note on the comparison of bands (yes, I know it is getting tiresome by now), the track Deus Vult which was played here features guest-vocals by Orphaned Land’s Kobi Farhi on the album, so it should be worth checking out. Having said that, Arkan can certainly hold their own as well.

Setlist:

Origins
Inner Slaves
Tied Fates
Deus Vult
Groans Of The Abyss
Lords Decline
Blind Devotion
Chaos Cypher