La Main – La Mélodie Du Sombre (Album – Unknown Pleasures Records)
Genre/Influences: Electro-Wave, Minimal-Electro, EBM.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: Three years after the debut album “L’Heure De Salir”, the French solo-project driven by Joann Guyonnet is back on track unleashing ten new songs.
Content: The sound of La Main is easily recognizable; it’s a melting pot of 80s influences like Electro/Pop-Wave, early EBM and pure Electro-Minimalism. The vocals are once again sung in French. There’s an interesting progression about the tracklist of this work. The debut songs are rather ‘slow’, a bit ‘lazy’-like, but quite progressively the songs become darker, colder and even harder at “Vif”.
+ + + : I personally experienced this new album in the prolongation of the debut work although it sounds more personal. La Main reveals that the sound is much more than a wink to Taxi Girl; this album has something of its own. I especially like the icy passages and the cold, melodic leads. “Silence” is a cool Minimal track while “Vif” has something more EBM orientated. I like this harder side of the work! I also have to mention the great last song “Cet Hiver”, which sounds as an apotheosis to the album.
– – – : La Main is a pretty accessible Electro project and yet its minimalism is not easy to seize while the French lyrics might be a challenge to catch an international audience.
Conclusion: If you like Electro-Retro-Minimalism with French lyrics on top, you’re definitely going to like this work!
Best songs: “Vif”, “Silence”, “Cet Hiver”; “Dans Le Coin”.
Rate: (7½).
Artist: www.facebook.com/ecoutelamain
Label: www.unknown-pleasures-records.com / www.facebook.com/Unknown-Pleasures-Records-566180440115465
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