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Oiseaux-Tempête
In all the time that I have spent writing record reviews, I do not think I have ever been able to say that a band has burst onto the scene without the use of ironic quotation marks, but I think this French trio finally warrants it: three weeks ago I had never heard of Oiseux-Tempête and today I am saying that they have made the single most exciting and bad-ass post-rock album since...uh...well...I cannot even remember the last time there was a great post-rock album. In any case, this epic favorably calls to mind all the ambition, urgency, and cinematic scope that characterized Godspeed! You Black Emperor's debut.
It is probably impossible to avoid discussing this album without repeatedly mentioning Godspeed, but the reason behind that is not due to any sort of slavish emulation or even a close resemblance between the two bands musically.  If anything, Oiseux-Tempête ("storm of birds") sound far more like a snarling, heavier twist on Explosions in the Sky mingled with more abstract drone- and field-recording-influenced soundscapes.  Godspeed's penchants for both strings and unrepentant degrees of bombast are (mostly) nowhere to be found here.  Nevertheless, the two bands share a lot of common ground in regard to inspiration, conceptual underpinning, and sense of purpose.  For example, this album's stated theme is nothing less than a "sonic odyssey" through "the qualms and queries of a sickly and dysfunctional Western society."  Also, Oiseux-Tempête is creatively interwined with filmmaker Stéphane C, who is documenting the "modern maelstrom" of Greece's gradual collapse.  This is a multi-disciplinary rock polemic, man.
Of course, none of those themes are explicitly conveyed through the actual music, though the album is peppered with various speech and news report recordings in case obsessive multilingual listeners want to appreciate it all on a much deeper and more profound level than I did.  For the rest of us, the band's passionate interest in the escalating unraveling of European civilization is important mostly because it inspired Oiseux-Tempête to create such a wonderful album.  Great art tends to happen when people feel very intensely about something, but that art is often even better when it is still abstract enough to resonate in a more universal way.  That is what is happening here–it is highly unlikely that I will become deeply immersed in the fate of Greece anytime soon, but this was certainly an inspiring, thought-stirring effort in a more general sense.
Musically, this sprawling double-album offers quite a bit to digest.  The band's raison d'être seems to be the soaring and atmospheric tremelo-picked guitar work of Frédéric Oberland, which favorably calls to mind both Tarantel and the aforementioned Explosions.  There is certainly no shortage of music in that vein and Oiseaux-Tempête are very good at it, skillfully avoiding any unnecessary clutter or go-nowhere improvisations and making the most out of their solid rhythm section (which unexpectedly features occasional Marissa Nadler/Beach House drummer Ben McConnell).  The best moments, however, are the ones where the trio twist that formula a bit by adding a bit more bite to the guitars than I expected, like the snarling, noisy stabs that enhance the opening "Opening Theme (Ablaze in the Distance)."  Album centerpiece "Ouroboros" is similarly inspired, opening with rattling strings and ending with a full-on guitar supernova.
Another thing I greatly appreciate is this band's talent for more abstract soundscapes built upon throbbing synths, shimmering processed guitars, and found sounds.  Oiseux-Tempête are rarely content with static drones or lush textures alone,  as pieces like "L'ile" are even more vibrant and dynamically compelling than the band's rock epics (they make up for lack of muscle in other ways). The trio also has a real gift for subtle psychedelia, which they display most beautifully in "Silencer," bolstering their clean, bittersweet arpeggios with woozy organ-like swells and an escalating crackle.  The opening of "Nuage Noir" is similarly beguiling, turning a somewhat banal spoken-word passage into something quite haunting with an eerily blurry bed of twinkling music-box-like tones.
If this album has a flaw, it is only that there is too much of it: I am rarely able to make it through its entirely in one sitting.  I have mixed feelings about that though.  If it were pared down to just a single LP, it would probably be a start-to-finish masterpiece.  However, it would also feel less like a bold statement of intent/uncompromising tour de force than it does now, which would be a bit of a shame.  Also, there is very little material present that could reasonably be identified as "filler": there are admittedly some very similar-sounding songs, but they all make a strong case for themselves on an individual basis.  And they combine for a very well-sequenced and powerful whole, even if it is a bit overwhelming.  This truly is a great album.  If anybody else has released a more impressive debut this year, I certainly have not heard it.
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