Melancholic and melodic, the new album by Avec pas d’casque, Cardinaldraws most of its strength from its lyrics, which the fantastic instrumentation supports and enhances.
When we listen to Avec pas d’casque’s new offering, poetry is what first brings us back to what we know of the Quebec band. This poetry that has nothing to do with any other and that, even after an eight-year hiatus, has lost none of its power to paint picturesque pictures with words, of dazzling beauty (despite all its melancholy). “And I will chew your boots to relax them,” sings leader Stéphane Lafleur like the greatest of declarations of devotion, on the first track of the album.
At the other end of the record, the song The sun is looking for parking on the horizonwhose title itself is a demonstration of this singular prose, lets the singer-songwriter intimate “Your mouth is my point of reference/Taste me even more slowly.” And he sings it in his charming and monotonous voice, as if it were commonplace to form sentences of such splendor.
This exercise of quoting the fabulous lyrics of this album could extend throughout this text, as there are so many verses that mark us throughout the songs. But let us rather say that Stéphane Lafleur’s pen is a gift for art. With the delicacy shown by those who know that it does not always take much to delight, he has composed short, sometimes repetitive texts, which say in few terms and without excess all that they have to say.
The music repeats the same process with the instruments: without overdoing it, always finding a way not to fall into banality, the melodies are as lulling and convincing as the words. The acoustic guitar lays the foundation for most of the pieces and is accompanied by arrangements that cause small explosions of beauty throughout the listening.
The intervention of the brass on Cardinal Or Let’s Flambéthe western-spaghetti-electro interlude (yes, yes!) on More messages will follow, the piano introduction of Shores… Without reinventing its particular folk sound, tinged with country, with this bass guitar which trots gently and distinctly on several pieces, Avec pas d’casque still allows itself to go beyond the lines according to its captivating originality.
Cardinal – With no helmet
Folk
Cardinal
With no helmet
Great music