Pic by titouan massé
With a sound something akin to a mutated fusion of Big Black, Fatima Mansions, and Melvins but openly distinct in its own roar and skin, Dewaere is a French band unleashing a rousing noise punk incitement very hard for us not to get excited over. Their music is a contagiously imposing trespass rich in imagination and enterprise and found in full devilment within recently released debut album Slot Logic. It is a cauldron of noise and raw temptation which harried, ravaged and seduced the senses from start to finish.
Hailing from Saint-Brieuc, Dewaere create an inescapably manipulative senses searing holler bred from the combined creative antics of vocalist Maxwell Farrington, guitarist Julien Henry, bassist Marc Aumont, and drummer Hugues Le Corre. As immediately revealed by album opener Get Down, the band’s music is nurtured in noise rock and punk flavours and inspirations but equally has an appetite for post punk and an additional array of sonic trespasses present and past. It all makes for a riveting insurgence of sound and adventure revelling the opportunity to infest ears. The first track initially teases with a guitar jangle which is swiftly joined by the commandingly and increasingly magnetic tones of Farrington. Almost as quickly the thumping beats of Le Corre descend as Aumont’s bass enticingly grumbles; it all coming together for a ferocious encounter but one with fluid moments of relative calm and composure. As an introduction to the band, the track is raw and majestic, and as a taste of things to come across Slot Logic quite delicious.
The following Budapest is similarly immediately compelling. The gnarly bass alone made an already keen appetite greedier as too the senses scything swings of Le Corre. The guitar insurgency of Henry is equally as invasive as it is hungrily seductive; corruptive hooks and grooves aligning with rhythmic predation to corrode and inflame ears and senses. The catchiness of the song is as powerful as its character of invention and matched within next up Happy Hour, another proposition which forces itself upon the listener before dancing with their rock ‘n’ roll instincts. A predatory affair led by the ever alluring vocals of Farrington, his presence as dynamic and devilish is in many ways akin to the likes of Cathal Coughlan (Fatima Mansions/Microdisney) and Guy McKnight (The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster), while the track itself is its own snarling contagion in the album’s continuing revelation.
Through the likes of Garden, a primal irrepressible serenade of a treat, and The Vase with its almost carnal incitement around rapier swung beats, Slot Logic only further blossoms in sound and imagination, both tracks feral but sublimely crafted predators before the band next up delivers a cover of The Korgis’ song Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime. Whilst embracing the original’s pop breath, Dewaere unleash their own corrosive power pop like bent alongside their never diminishing sonic causticity; unleashing an adrenaline fuelled gear never envisaged in the track originally. It is a spicing further developed within the outstanding St-Tropez In Summer which follows. There is at times a certain Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster meets Engerica flavouring to the band’s distinctly individual sound but a twist in the wonderful bedlam here which again also hints at a Fatima Mansions influence or coincidence.
The thumping stomp of Aye Aye within a sonic cyclone keeps release and pleasure flying before October casts a web of scorched and scorching sonic discontent around a darkly intimating vocal croon. The track hurts and seduces in equally measure, leaving ears sore and the imagination alive before Wot U Lyk completes the release with its pop hungry garage punk ‘n’ roll; the body swiftly bouncing to its own fevered energy and catchiness.
It is a fine close to an album which just impresses more and more by the listen much as Dewaere themselves with every passing creative exploit and invasion.
Slot Logic is out now via Phantom Records and BiGout Records; available @ https://phantomrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/dewaereband https://dewaereband.bandcamp.com
Pete RingMaster 04/01/2019
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