FONCEDALLE self-titled album is out
Foncedalle's previous EP, Traboule, had already made a name for itself for very good reasons, but now they're back with an even more ambitious, accomplished and nervous debut album. Eleven tracks, forty minutes - that's more than enough time for the three Lyonnais to take listeners on a wild electronic ride, pounding them with beats, riffs and beeps to make it clear that they are "a rock band playing electro, not the other way round".
Foncedalle – the album is a psychedelic, ride flat out at 200 miles an hour with no hands and no seatbelts, straight into the wall of sound - a wet dream for any automotive metaphors enthusiasts. Righteously confident, Foncedalle doesn't wait for approval to enter the fray, yet takes care not to overdo his effects.
The power trio are no strangers to high powered new wave, reminiscent of a bunch of pretty furious '80s bands, but they seem to revel in their multi-referential nature, the better to blow it all out of the water in the space of a few bars.
Fairly coherent and compact at first glance, often moving between cosmic clubbing and robotic trance (TransU, Saint-Angers, KDB in homage to the brilliant redhead from Manchester City), the album reveals its hybrid identities as the tracks and listens progress. And when the guys allow themselves a short breather on OLD or display an almost suspiciously relaxed attitude (WANE), you get the feeling that the slightest break could send you off the rails, that these beats with their unpredictable jolts will keep the listener on their toes at all costs ; see Meghan, and its monastic vocals riddled with synthetic pulses. Some orientations are designed to confuse - yes, the offbeat Afro-Cuban rhythms of François Roses, we're talking about you - but watch out for your eardrums if the band's fuming intentions are on display from the very first seconds (Louis II, Heat Wave): just flex your muscles and get ready for a fight. Because it's coming, that's for sure.
Electro or rock, kraut or psychedelic, eighties or nineties, Foncedalle doesn't really give a damn, raging between past and present at well over 88 miles an hour, leaving us to ponder the retro-futuristic accents of his surges. While we can’t wait to see them on stage for predictably epic sets, the Lyonnais have delivered an accomplished debut album, packed with influences and paradoxes mastered with the utmost ease. It's a good slap in the face, as brutal but precise as a De Bruyne strike. Foncedalle 1 – Their rivals 0.
