Kinda like Rick Springfield, I
get excited by heavy French music. I've listened to a fair amount of it, and I
cannot put my finger on what exactly what it is that French musicians do, but I
enjoy a lot of it. This release came out of nowhere but it sure has the goods
to make for some very interesting listening. I've listened to so much average
music that I love it when an album comes along that really changes things up.
I'm not sure I would call this
metal, and I'm not sure I know to what it compares. The press release says it
“indulges in minimalistic contemporary experimentalism whilst being firmly
rooted in a darker undercurrent of heavy progressive and psychedelic
krautrock”. I would probably say its post-metal and leave it at that.
WuW is two brothers who
hail from Paris.
They bring a variety of percussion instruments, keyboards, drum, guitars and
bass, and they pretty much do whatever they want. I find this music very
intriguing both in the way it is performed and the way the songs build up.
Several songs on this release start with a simple rhythm or a simple bass line,
a soft strum pattern on the guitar, and layer upon layer of other
instrumentation builds the song until something that started out so basic has suddenly
become a heaving sonic leviathan that is simply crushingly heavy. Another thing
that took me a while to realize is that this is an instrumental album. I'm not
a big fan of instrumental albums, but this one is so good that I was listening
to track 4 out of 6 before it even hit me that there are no vocals on this
album. The songs are that engaging and interesting, there is so much going on
with the different layers and sounds that vocals are not necessary. When you
check this out, make sure to listen with the trusty headphones. It is so much
better that way. And not some wimpy earbuds, get those studio quality over the
ear monsters that really recreate what these guys put down.
The title of the album
translates to “Nothing Will Be Spared”, which also makes you think. Like,
nothing will be left out, we're putting everything we have into this release.
Or, the destruction will be absolute, nothing will be saved, it will all be
gone. That ambiguity is good, it makes you wonder what they really meant. All of
the song titles are in French as well. They include “We Were Born To Be
People”, “To Live In The Splendor of the Crepuscules”, and “For What Will
Remain”. Somewhat vague, somewhat head scratching, but it makes you think and
take part in the music and the complete presentation of the album. I listen to
an instrumental song and wonder why it was given that particular title. I like
to partipate, and WuW have given us these wonderful tracks that allow us to do
just that.
You can listen to the same old
genres and formats and verse, chorus, verse structures and yeah, you can derive
a certain pleasure in the same. Sometimes, though, its good to really stretch
out and involve yourself with something far from the ordinary. That's why we
need bands like this who give us music like this.
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