This is a collection of what the promoters of this French duo call "four-minute pop vignettes". It is the follow up to their 2008 debut 'Pain Disappears' and is released on the Buzzin' Fly record label run by Everything But The Girl's Ben Watts.
The duo in question is Parisian DJ and songwriter Mademoiselle Caro and mainstream pop arranger Franck Garcia.
Together they deliver a slick, commercially orientated brand of Euro electo-pop with a slightly sleazy nightclub feel (although dancing to most of these tracks you'd hardly break sweat).
The glitchy tunes feature heavily accented and emotionally detached vocals with Franck's being the more prominent of the two.
After the briefest of orchestral intros, the album kicks off with the gently driving beat and bitter reflections of From The Shadow ("There's no way to explain why you give me so much pain") which establishes the mood of urbane melancholy that pervades the record.
This is followed by Everything Must Change which is just about the best thing here - a perfect slice of catchy electronica that is very like Germany's The Notwist, a similarity which is even more pronounced on Pale Christmas , the track that immediately follows. As the title implies, this song has a wistful quality with forlorn lyrics -"just a seedy daydream gone and nothing to be done". Soldiers continues in this disaffected and reflective vein to a New Order-ish bass line.
|
These first four tracks (discounting the intro) would make a solid EP. Unfortunately, the interest wanes over the album length of 43 minutes. The tunes are too repetitive and the second half of the album doesn't have the same glacial charm.
For instance, Faith has a lengthy ,and ill -judged, spoken word intro featuring clunky and pretentious lines such as "I know there's a kingdom where we are all angels" while the more upbeat Drive only demonstrates why the duo are wise to keep thing more low-key and slowcore.
There's something a little too restrained and tightly controlled about the album as a whole. The effect of this is to strip it of any energy or edge. The cumulative effect of the mainly banal lyrics becomes deadening well before the five minute instrumental filler (The First Time) which closes the record.
|
