Des souvenirs devant

Description

This record by Patrick Bruel is very good. Not just because he composed all the music with his eyes closed and thinking hard about those from Sautet's films. Not just because he wrote all the lyrics after agreeing to let himself get tangled up in the spirals of his old notebooks. Not just because David Moreau and his beautiful team crafted an ideal and warm sound that highlights his throat-close voice and his melodies that work with a simple arpeggio but love to puff out their chests when a rhythm or strings invite them to do so. "Des souvenirs devant." snaps and disarms especially because it resembles the man Bruel has become, a former singer for teenage girls, an actor at times, and a poker player who doesn't know how to cheat. At a time when the new French song is searching for itself, he moves forward bare and tells his story as he has always been, from laughter to tears, nostalgic certainly, but with his gaze fixed on a future he wants to believe is better. His close ones know his flaws, one foot in the pot of old variety and the other in that of Anglo-Saxon pop. His audience is in the know.

With "Va où tu veux," "Je fais semblant," "Gosses en cavale," "Où sont les rêves," or this "Maison de papier" impossible to crumple, he will certainly gallop in the charts but the important thing is elsewhere. In these little vignettes of happiness, these notes that trot and comfort that one can place there, in a corner of the head, to brighten the grayness. And all those who did not expect him will have to bow down.