Damn, not bad. This is melodic, caustic screamo from France, but it's a hell of a lot better than most of this stuff. Yes, there are a lot of frantic riffs that border on being a little loose and sloppy, and the vocals are unrelenting screams, but the songwriting is pretty damn good, and I don't mind the vocals because the screaming is controlled. I really like the drumming because the hits are forceful as hell, and the tones fairly strong, plus the patterns and fills jump out at me for some reason - it's nothing flashy, and I guess the rhythm section is solid while the guitars kind of go off sometimes, so maybe that's part of it. Compositionally it's a mix of tempos and volume levels, occasionally letting up with some jangly clean guitars (lightly fuzzed) or spoken vocals, at the other extreme upping the speeds and discordance quite a bit. They know what they're doing though. The actual guitar parts are often a little free flowing, but the timing is dead on with the instruments playing as a whole, so the end result is a tight unit that focuses their efforts on melody and force without getting overdramatic or irritating. "Conflit" is a perfect example of what they're capable of: Slower, darker, covering a wide spectrum of dynamics with plenty of explosive percussive hits and intense chord progressions, etc. Awesome. Moments at the start of "Je L'appelai" are definitely too jarring and off the wall for me to handle, bordering on complete chaos, but they get it back under control shortly thereafter. There are a couple of untitled little instrumental tracks as well, acting as true breathers, but not disrupting the arrangement of the songs. The recording is fine. I think a heavier guitar tone could be awesome for the aggressive moments, but it wouldn't contrast right with the softer areas I don't think, so I like what they've got here. It's pretty stripped down and in your face, the vocals are mixed way back in amongst the music, etc. Not bad at all. The CD comes in a very interesting handmade package. A piece of cork board holds two plain cardboard sleeves on each side, with a red band wrapping around with the tracklist and whatnot on it. In one sleeve is the CD, while the other houses a red and white booklet with a red and white photograph. The lyrics are all in French, so I can't make them out, but the package looks pretty interesting (even though it's incredibly hard to get the booklet and CD back into the tight fitting sleeves). This is the best CD of this genre that I've heard in quite awhile. I definitely dig this.
[Alchimia]
Running time - 30:18, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: La Pluie, Conflit]
Alchimia Records - http://alchimia.inc.free.fr
