Written by: Dave Cantrell
Whatever perspective you bring to it, whether it be a fairly fresh-to-the-scene one where you’re summoned to do your homework when it comes to the history of rock’n’roll (for want of a better term) or you’ve been afforded the long view by dint of having been engaged with the world’s emerging music scenes for decades as is the case for your correspondent who turned 21 in 1977 and for whom, no matter how cool it might be to add to that brief bio snippet “and never looked back” realized early on that nothing’s quite exactly ‘new,’ that musicians, just like all artists in all mediums, have little choice but to draw from their predecessors to whatever degree no matter how daringly fresh their work, and the scene they rise out of, may seem – so-called ‘No Wave,’ as an appropriate example, that exploded out of NYC in the late 70s/early 80s with its verve and its take-no-prisoners attitude wouldn’t have had a wild leg to stand on without the pre-existence of free jazz pioneers with names like Cecil and Ornette – and so do we come to today’s featured band, a trio out of France called You Said Strange that pulls with elemental force from a variety of (mostly dark) genres that themselves pulled from previous eras.
Made up of Eliot Carriére, Matthieu Vaugelad, and Hectore Riggi, the band take their next step toward guaranteed immortality in the form of the just-released, extraordinary Trade Your Soul EP, arriving with impressive next-step-forward authority on the heels of 2018 debut full-length Salvation Prayer (recorded in Portland with Dandy Warhol Peter G. Holmstrom) and the two follow-up full-lengths Thousand Shadows Volumes 1 and 2 (2021 and 2023, respectively). Trafficking in an addictive melange of post-punked psych-grunge with a strong soupçon of shoegaze stirred in for good measure, there could hardly be a more representative – which is to say more stirring – example of this lot’s unique blending skills than the track we’re previewing for you today. Rising out of the gate with a chunky, semi-distorted riff that sounds as proto-metal as it does punk, “Dance For No One” quickly morphs into a thrumming throbbing and, above all, deftly propulsive track that perfectly contrasts (in that beguiling way of theirs which seems to come sans effort) Eliot’s commanding vocal that is somehow both deadpan and dead fucking serious in equal measure. Anchored by Vaugelade’s drum track that’s as tight and expressive as any we’ve heard yet this year – another example of just how crucial the occupant of the drum stool is, which should have been clear to everyone since at least some bloke named Hugo ffs – Carriére’s mid-track guitar break alone should be enough to draw the hordes to this EP. Trade your soul? Hell, good as this is, if that’s what you have to do to obtain this do it. Believe us, it’s a bargain. [obtain it here at Exag’/Le Cèpe Records, try here for both Thousand Shadows albums; feature photo: Charlotte Romer]
