Perhaps this is a bit of an “escape” for Parisian Joseph Apsarah. He has shrugged off past nom de plumes and similarly dispensed with past collaborators he has worked with under the Cepheide banner. This project was a trio when I first encountered it and the musician who is also active in other diverse acts such as Baume, Rance & Scaphandre has obviously found it easier to work alone in isolation over these past couple of difficult years, the result being 2nd full-length studio album Les échappées. Last we heard was the dense and epic track ‘Lucide’ running as a 20-minute companion piece on split EP with Timelurker in 2019. This took a bit of fathoming and so too does this as far as narrative is concerned. We are helpfully informed that the album “is about the emotional responses from the body in its multiple impulses, either offensive or defensive, directed towards the “other” or oneself.” Also, on translating the 6 track titles we get the words ‘Blood,’ ‘Oblivion,’ ‘Drunkenness,’ ‘Tears,’ ‘Screams’ and ‘Nausea’ which pretty much speaks just what sort of emotions we are going to be confronting here.
Obviously, these are all really personal emotions and sharing them with others would take something away from this. Working alone has not hampered Joseph from expressing things in a way that’s both violent and emotive. This is fast and furious tremolo furrowing and windswept post black metal which is tempered by a mind that seems very much in the grip of turmoil. The speed of opener ‘Le Sang’ is almost so volatile at times it sounds like things are in danger of coming off the rails and crashing. Drums batter away, the guitar work is a blur and it is all a cluttered and restless place we find ourselves pitched up in. By comparison the vocals are in the background, hollering away and if expressing anything resembling words, lost behind the frenzy. It’s not all like this though, even if the mind does not calm the music does into slow and ponderous gloomy introspection and we are just at the stage of the “blood” as it speeds up again and flows from the veins in a veritable torrent. This is densely layered stuff occasionally lightened by melodicism such as some vocal chants as ‘L’oubli’ is sought; numbness found in the more ambient passages but the lurching giddy effects never far away.
There are occasional surprises and the biggest is at with the “drunken” part, salvation found at the bottom of a bottle via some noir sounding blues-grass guitar playing. “I’ll have a shot of whatever he is drinking please” being the reaction on 1st hearing this. The resulting “tears” see a post black gaze brought to the table as the ruins of the night before are cleared and reflected upon, headache tablets are taken but don’t clear the fog and it seems as though we are in the midst of a never-ending cycle. The abuse may have provided a respite but one thing leads to another and further disorders of confusion and angst are left to ruggedly tumble out the speakers.
I guess this could have been more of a harrowing listen but you have to dig deep for moments of lucidity here and like the music and themes Les échappées is liable to leave your head spinning. One thing that cannot be denied is the honesty behind it all as it expresses what many are feeling in this day and age and this makes the uncomfortable facets of the music worth confronting, even if the result leaves the listener somewhat on edge.
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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