ANIMAL TRISTE: Night Of The Loving Dead (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Animal Triste was born from the fusion between some members of Darko and La Maison Tellier, whose albums have the gift or the misfortune to be released at very particular societal moments. The previous album was almost coinciding with the beginning of the pandemic period, while this new album, "Night Of The Lovind Dead", is released at the time of the war in Ukraine... However, these albums do not deserve to be overshadowed by a burning news.

With an unusual media and public recognition for a French rock band, well helped by a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song ('Dancing In The Dark') which put them in the spotlight, Animal Triste did not rest on their laurels during these last two years. The will of the group is to give back to the rock its letters of nobility. With a cover close to the one of the last Leprous, the Frenchmen cover their 10 tracks with a link between the underground counterculture and a certain modernity.

One thinks here of inspirations drawn from the darkness of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, with a music sometimes haunting in the verses ('Tell Me How Bad I Am'), which would have met the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for the alternative side that we perceived from "Wrong Creatures" (2018). The particularity of Animal Triste is to keep a melodic line almost in every composition and to distill in a smart way a communicative energy. This alternation is found in the voice of Yannick whose vocals is sometimes detached, as distant ('Animal Years'), or more raging or even inhabited ('The Gift Of Love And Fear').

The musicians sometimes go much further than the simple duality between rock and alternative by pushing a little more the experimental aspect of their work, approaching the cold wave ('With Every Bird' (with Peter Hayes), the heavy metal tinged with progressive ('Play God'), notably in the fat guitars and a rhythmic which wants to be more powerful and explosive, but also by integrating folk elements ('Diamond Dreams') which contrast with a modern beginning of album. This richness enhances the interest for this new album while keeping the red thread of writing real songs that do not lose the listener along the way.

Animal Triste offers a second varied album containing enough researched, energetic and experimental tracks to constitute a major release of this new year and to succeed in the feat of conciliating media recognition and pleasure for a public fond of rock. - Official website

ANIMAL TRISTE

NIGHT OF THE LOVING DEAD

AUTRE LABEL

ROCK