Ripe

Description

"Ripe" is the fifth album from the shoegaze/grunge trio hailing from Beirut, Lebanon. As the world crumbles around them, lyricist, vocalist, and guitarist Julia Sabra, drummer Pascal Semerdjian, and guitarist/bassist Marwan Tohme transmute their rage into something transcendental. With their fifth studio album, Ripe, the Lebanese trio takes everything they’ve built over the last decade and pushes it in new, unexpected directions. Ripe is as much a break as it is a natural evolution for the band: rawer, darker, but with the same unwavering determination – a fitting response to the turmoil their region is currently experiencing. The opening track, "I Stand Corrected," immediately sets the album's tone and themes. We are instantly plunged into a hazy soundscape of distorted guitars, pounding rhythms, and Julia Sabra’s ethereal voice, singing of rage, destruction, death, and perseverance. The repeated mantra “Destroy, rebuild, you know the drill” signals the cyclicity that runs through the album. Ripe retains traces of the band’s signature dream-pop sound, yet the album's energy is jagged, urgent, and often explosively raw. Much of the album was recorded live at drummer Pascal Semerdjian’s family home in the Lebanese mountains, and it shows. Ripe captures the band playing in the same room, at the height of their powers, and translates the energy and urgency of their live performances into the studio. Longtime producer Fadi Tabbal once again creates the perfect sonic environment for the songs, striking a delicate balance between richness and brutality, heaviness and ethereality. Sabra handles most of the guitar work this time around, and her raw, emotional playing is at the heart of this album. Marwan Tohme on bass and Semerdjian on drums have equally distinct voices, but it's the sum of these two elements and their synergy that truly shines through. The band often locks into hypnotic grooves, with tracks like the hazy "Colorblind" and the cutting "Poison," revealing a surprising rhythmic pulse given the track's heaviness and dissonance. And while there is a deliberate shift from an original synth-driven sound to a more guitar-centric palette, atmospheric layers still run throughout the album. The result is a sound that is both visceral and expansive. "Dust Bunnies," the album’s first single, delivers a menacing, unsettling atmosphere reminiscent of PJ Harvey's darkest moments. It's a laundry list of the frustrations bred by life in Lebanon, drawing on a primal rage passed down through generations and culminating with Sabra exclaiming, "Our ancestors may have known / There's nowhere else to go." This fatalism is countered in "Ruins," a powerful reflection on perseverance: "Like roots among stones / We keep going." Throughout the album, the band navigates between hope and despair, resignation and resilience.