LIFE IS DEAD (vinyl)

Description

One day, we'll have to take a serious look at the subject. Perhaps put out an anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study. Understand how, from a living room in L'Aigle, Cannibale polished a sound halfway between the Caribbean, the 1960s American West Coast garage scene, and Brazil's 'Tropicalia.' Because me, I spent a few holidays in that part of the Orne, and it wasn't exactly oozing sunshine and psychedelia. Lately, they've 'learned to do nothing.' By doing nothing, they composed their third album 'Life is Dead.' No doubt, the influences, the sound, and the Cannibale stamp are there and instantly make their mark once again. And in this post-everything era, 'Life is Dead' sounds very much like post-Cannibale. Stewed, gnawed to the bone, everything on this record appears more precise, more matured. They always have this working method, as free in experimentation as it is mathematical in its redundancy, and which weaves the link between their albums. Every day, amidst the botanical and ethyl mists of his L'Aigle den, Manuel tinkers, fiddles with instruments and 'spews out music,' with the aim of pleasing his bandmates. 'It's a swaying music, and at some point, you're bound to start shaking your ass,' says Fabrice Gilbert, singer of Frustration, who can be heard on the track 'Kings of the Attics,' and yet is more accustomed to mosh pit scuffles than passionate hip-swaying. This infusion of instinct and seduction is reflected in the band's ethereal music and Nicolas' dreamlike lyrics. 'Life is Dead' once again promises to be a powerful producer of imaginary worlds and uncontrolled spasms of the pelvis and guts of the mind. Take the throbbing bass and little guitar nips on 'The Hammer Hits' or the tachycardic 'Kings of the Attics,' about the tribulations of a group of teenagers rehearsing. A somewhat unique track, the last one composed, where Manuel 'for the first time feels he has achieved his idea of a non-mix between new-wave and Caribbean music.' This album also stands out for its increasingly intense relationship with the body. In the sense of matter and food on 'Savouring Your Flesh,' which we can easily imagine as the soundtrack to a pagan cartoon feast, with a huge cauldron and little bubbles bursting on the surface when characters are thrown in by the ankle. Or as an object of desire in the tasteful lament 'Taste Me,' with its Morrison-esque label. 'How do we eat others? Kissing is a way of eating the other, tasting them.' Damn these Cannibale, they respect nothing! Since they respect nothing, Nicolas goes all the way and defies death, always absurdly. A tendency to cheat death, psychedelic purgatory, and laughing with the white light in your face. The opening track? Two guys killing each other, endlessly, never managing to finish the job. 'I Don't Want To Rot'? The story of a body crushed on the asphalt, all of it told by dazed lunatics going full throttle on a go-kart track. 'The Mouth of Darkness'? A hard-rock band name title, an idea for a song on it, a failure that results in a song telling how the failed song should have been. And this album title? 'Life is Dead,' it's completely stupid!' Definitely... Arriving as rookies at Born Bad for their 10th anniversary, Cannibale now sits, and in a prominent position, at the table of the label's resident bands. Authors of completely adulterated concerts, the Normans should continue with their new tracks to put all the mosh pits of the continent's stadiums in their place. In the future, for sure, 'Life is Dead' will occupy a separate chapter in the anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study dedicated to them. A somewhat post-mortem moment of full creation.