Calling All Angels
April Aromatics (2012)

Calling All Angels is perhaps one of my favorite incense compositions, and although it mostly centers around a tremendously complex, bittersweet labdanum material (helped along, I suspect, by a dose of the Biolandes Hydrocarboresine, a natural derivative of cistus-labdanum that gives both Amber Absolute and Norma Kamali their utterly toothsome burnt honey/cinder toffee quality), there is a huge dose of sooty frankincense in the opening half that firmly establishes the holy side of the holy-slash-edible equation that this scent has going on.

Calling All Angels smells like incense smoking and spluttering to a halt inside a stone jar of chestnut honey so ancient it’s become a stiff brown paste. I can never decide if it is is the kind of thing you slather yourself in when you want someone to eat you or the kind of thing you wear to commune with a Higher Power, but maybe that’s the point.

Golden Mass incense in a bottle. Starts sweet and almost like L’Antichambre’s candy-apple Le Tabac, but settles quickly to Mass incense with a golden honey feel. Very nice!

Oh my! What a chorus of notes! Tiny points of sweetness. Smoldering incense. Mass resins. A bit of rubber, I smell. Notes see-saw. Juicy, dripping honey. The rose plays hide and seek. This fragrance is hard to describe. It has so much depth and character... It can be heavy and bold and slightly skanky and it is just my "thing". It sort of reminds me of some of the more intense Mancera offerings, or even Bois 1920 house fragrances.

There is also smoked, nearly burnt wood odors. Tonka smells toasted. There is a burnt soil smell, as well. The sweeter notes have more "air time", as the other notes settle closer on my skin. I found in the first hour, notes in CAA seem to bounce around. Now later, the whole thing becomes smoother. Honestly, my brain and nose cannot really discern between synthetic or natural notes. Whatever is here, is just delightful.

This scent never appears overly sweet or gourmandish to me. This is more of an earthy, woody, incense style, for the ages. I'm glad a fellow basenoter shared her sample with me. This, was a surprise experience.

Hours and hours later vanilla-incense lasts and lasts. Well done!

April Aromatics Calling All Angels, my first try from the house, is exactly as advertised: a resinous collaboration of benzoin, labdanum, amber, incense, honey, and hordes of other resins that I might have no idea of. Additional sweetness and perhaps sharpness are added via vanilla and tonka, but the main story here is one of resins with slightly woody undertones.

It's sweet but not as sweet as, say, Le Labo Benjoin 19, let alone Amber Absolute, but not remotely as animalic, as Ambre Russe. Calling All Angels leans mostly sweet but ever so slightly animalic as well.

Longevity is extreme but projection is still quite great. Surely this is unisex and better for cold weather, but since it isn't a crazy projector, it might work on summer nights as well. Overall, a great resinous entry but one that suffers from some redundancy with and similarly expensive pricing ($170 for 30ml) to Le Labo Benjoin 19 ($300 for 50ml).

8 out of 10

The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio

Don't know why, but I really dislike this! I've given it a couple of different chances and I don't get any of the smoky oriental stuff. Can't specifically put my finger on the problem notes for me, but kind of wonder if I received the wrong sample/label or something?!?