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Les Fourmis est Formidable

by Spencer Ross

Ok, I live up in Montreal now. Not just in anglophone Canada, but in francophone Canada, too. So it's about time that I started listening to some French-Canadian music, rather than the same old Green Day and Eve 6 songs that play incessantly on the radio stations up here, which basically have no specific format whatsoever, other than at least 35% of the music aired must be of Canadian content. That's actually a national law to preserve whatever Canadian culture that hasn't been taken over by the states. Thus on the "modern rock" station, I kept hearing this song on the francophone daily countdown, "Le Chambre" (The Room). After a while of trying to decipher who the actual artist was, I found out it was Jean Leloup, who hails from Montreal, and the name of the album it was from was titled Les Fourmis (The Ants). So I picked it up.

French music is interesting. No matter how good the music is, the vocals always suck. There's something about it but French people can't sing rock music. I suppose Noir Desir could pass since their French is so...French, but Quebecois french is terrible vocal music. Thus, that little slide hook in "Le Chambre" made me wonder how good the rest of the album could be, since the singing was fairly bad. I suppose its something that you get used to; and its something that, on this album, the music definitely compensates for. All the lyrics aren't included in the liner notes, and it takes me a while to learn the lyrics, let alone translate them, but there are several good songs on Les Fourmis.

Leloup's music isn't hard rock, isn't soft alternative, isn't jam...it's a sort of rock music that's in a class of its own. Actually, it might be compared to some earlier Radiohead like "Creep." There's some interesting pedal effects on songs, such as in the beginning of "Voyager." "La Vie est Laide" (Life is Empty) is a good song with a nice little guitar riff that just starts to get annoying when he breaks into the chorus. "Satyre" is a short 46 second song, but heavy with a pause effect that makes it cool to listen to. You think your CD player skipped. Perhaps one of the best songs and most emotional is "Je Joue de la Guitar" (I Play the Guitar). There really isn't a drum beat or anything until later in the song, but Leloup fingerpicks the guitar in a melodic, yet somber fashion urging people, in English to "fuck the system." Hey, everyone's gotta use some English nowadays to appeal to the public.

The language barrier aside, this a really good 4 star album with some innovative, yet all-too-common techniques. Some of the songs are a little lengthy, but yet the album seems so short that even after it's done, you're wondering if there's going to be more. Jean Leloup has no definite style in his songs. No two songs sound the same...which is good. Thats how a good album should be.

11/28/00