Artist: Jehnny Beth Album: You Heartbreaker, You Label: Jehnny Beth Link: https://www.jehnnybeth.com/ Style: Rock, Hard Rock, Metal
Camille Berthomier was born in Poitiers (France) into a family where art played an important role. Her father, a theatre director, passed on his interest in theatre and cinema to her, and she has appeared as an actress in a dozen feature films and in the series Hostage. But music was not left behind, as she started playing the piano at the age of eight and, influenced by rock and punk during her teenage years, she made a name for herself in several bands, including the duo John & Jehn and the band Savage. She has also participated in prestigious collaborations with bands such as Idles, Tindersticks, The XX and Rone.
For You Heartbreaker, You, her second solo album, she further emphasizes a rock sound that is clearly harder, which can at least be likened to hard rock or even second-generation nu metal. On most of the tracks, there are also obvious influences from industrial rock, reminiscent of the work of artists such as Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. This is particularly evident on the single ‘No Good For People’, where we hear music full of rage, violence and tension, a veritable electric shock carried by devastating guitar riffs.
A mixture of instrumental textures obtained through hardcore playing and industrial sounds, the sound of this album is as raw and rough as it gets. The treatment of the vocals, which are sung exclusively in English, gives them a compressed feel – far from what audiophiles might expect – but above all a rich, catchy texture that fits perfectly with the devastating style of the rock anthems that make up this hard-hitting album. The lulls in the opening bars of a few tracks are only there to prepare for the explosion that follows, so there’s no risk of boredom when you put this record on your turntable.
Artist: Model/Actriz Album: Pirouette Label: Dirty Hit Link: https://www.modelactriz.com/ Style: Rock, Hard Rock
To describe the second album of Model/Actriz Pirouette as noise would be too simplistic. Energetic and tense, it ranges from pop to industrial metal, yet manages to remain both approachable and atypical.
This Boston-based band was formed by drummer Ruben Radlauer and guitarist Jack Wetmore. Both have known each other since childhood, their fathers even playing music together a few years earlier. Impressed by a performance by singer Cole Haden, the two men recruited him for the band, before adding bassist Aaron Shapiro. Their concerts earned them a good reputation, but with the confinement, their first album, recorded in 2021, was not released until 2023, although it was well received by critics on Pitchfork and Bandcamp.
While their musical style links them to the noise and punk movements, there are also components borrowed from metal. As a result, the tracks as a whole present a certain radicalism, but never as extreme as those of other famous bands in the aforementioned styles. Far removed from the sometimes violent archetypes, the tracks retain their interest without being too accessible either; they seek to integrate a danceable or electronic dimension and sometimes approach the industrial, recalling tracks by Nine Inch Nails or Marylin Manson. Placed at n°5, the short track “Headlights” acts as an articulation towards a calmer part.
Far from taking saturation as their central model, as other noise bands do, Model/Actriz seem to distance themselves from it. On the contrary, what immediately catches the ear is the metallic sound of the guitar, echoing the synthesizer, which resembles a vibraphone whose bars have been swapped for huge metal ones. The frenetic rhythm is distantly reminiscent of the 80s, but shines through in its tension and dryness. In the midst of this pounding, the vocals take on almost disconcerting pop accents, adding to the ambivalence of the moods created by listening to this atypical rock.
