The Thread

Description

Two years after their explosive debut album "The Thread," Lysistrata releases "Breathe In/Out," their second full-length album that establishes the trio from Saintes as a strong link in a new indie-rock scene in France. However, it took time to dedicate to these new songs amidst a busy tour that took Théo, Max, and Ben to (almost) all corners of the world: over 180 concerts in France (and all its major festivals), Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Wales, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Canada! These regions have been variously introduced to the exalted noise rock of Lysistrata, but often thrilled by their live mastery, which is notably above the rest. A frantic pace, indeed, but everything seems quite easy for these boys in their early 20s. Without calculation, without haste; with spontaneity, with passion. For the making of Breathe In/Out, the technical setup from the first album was naturally carried over, from the Black Box studio for the framework to Michel Toledo for recording (still live and on tape) and then mixing. But while the songs from The Thread had long lived on stage before finding a place on a record, here the path is reversed: the album was entirely composed from October 2018 to March 2019, the date they entered the studio. The three friends bring their riffs, find others together, resurrect unfinished pieces, assemble them like Legos, and build the structures that will gradually give birth to the new tracks. The lyrics, which evoke both love and madness, anxiety and education, merge in a second phase and are often chanted in unison. For Breathe In/Out, everything goes faster; Théo, Max, and Ben know more what they want and execute it effortlessly. The tracks are also, on average, shorter and more direct. The proposals become more extreme, in one (brutal) sense as well as the other. Tepidity has no place here, and we are thus thrown into the ropes ("Death By Embarrassment" and its tank-like power, the slap of "Boot On a Thistle") before experiencing a true moment of calm halfway through on "End Of The Line," a sublime ballad where the silences reveal the natural reverberations. Fans of more winding paths are certainly not spared (we are still in the Lysistrata house), for example on "Different Creatures," the champagne opener of the album; or on "Mourn," the epic first single unveiled this summer accompanied by its equally adventurous animated video created by illustrator Margaux Chetteau. With a completely disconcerting naturalness, two impressive albums and three very endearing personalities, Lysistrata have already built their edifice to a dizzying height. Walls of sound and wicked melodies, noise labyrinths and frontal emotion, you will emerge marked from their innocent claws; marked and happy. So breathe in, breathe out.