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Life Is Dead

Cannibale

Life Is Dead

Label: Born Bad

Genre: Rock / Pop

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  • LP €18.99
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We’ll have to look into the matter seriously one day. Publish an anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study, maybe. At any rate, try to understand how Cannibale, from some living room in the Northern France town of L’Aigle, managed to perfect a sound somewhere between the Caribbeans, 1960s West Coast garage scene and Tropicalia’s Brazil. Because I for myself have spent a few vacations around that part of Orne - and it didn’t quite perspire sunshine and psychedelia.

They got into “doing nothing” lately. And while doing so, they’ve put together their third album, Life is Dead. No doubt here: the influence, sound and hallmark are clearly Cannibale’s, once again leaving their instantaneous imprint. In our post-all era though, this Life is Dead could sound like post-Cannibale. Simmered, gnawed to the bone; everything in that record feels more precise and simmered at length.

Their distinct working method, both open to experimentation and mathematically redundant, ties all of their albums together. Everyday, in the alcohol-heavy botanical mist of his den in L’Aigle, Manuel tinkers about, pieces together instruments and “vomits music”, to please the band’s buddies. “It’s a music that rolls and sways; at one point it’ll necessarily get your ass shimming” dixit Frustration’s singer Fabrice Gilbert, who can be heard on the track Kings of the Attics. It’s all the more convincing coming from an habitué of mosh pit close-combat rather than passionate oscillation.

This infusion of instinct and seduction feeds back into the group’s vaporous music and Nicolas’ dreamy lyrics. Life is Dead is shaping up to be yet another motor for imagination, for out of control body moves and spasms of the brains. Take, for example, the drumming bass and razor-sharp guitar strokes on The Hammer Hits or the racing Kings of the Attics, which recounts the tribulations of a teens’ band on rehearsal. Only one track is a bit of an outsider, the album’s last composition for which Manuel feels he “managed, for the first time, to achieve [his] idea of non-blend between new-wave and Caribbean music.”

This record also stands out due to an ever more intense connection to the body. In the sense of matter and food on Savouring Your Flesh, which could be the soundtrack for a pagan feast in a cartoon; massive cauldron and little bubbles bursting at the surface with each new character being thrown in the brew, held by the ankle. Or else as object of desire in the palatable lament Taste Me - recognisably “made in Morrison”. “How do we eat others? Kissing is a way of eating, tasting one another.” Damn these Cannibale! They really have no respect at all.

And if they’re going to be disrespectful, might as well go all the way. Nicolas defies death - absurdly, alway: daredevil tendencies, psychedelic purgatory and a good laugh with a white light beaming straight in his face. Opening title? Two guys trying to kill each other, without ever managing to get the job done. I Don’t Want to Rot? The tale of a body crushed on the pavement, like if it was told by madmen racing full blast around a kart track. The Mouth of Darkness? A hard-rock band title, an idea for a track to go along the title, a screwup resulting in a song recounting how the screwed up song should have been. And the album’s title? “Life is Dead, it’s totally stupid!” Oh dear…

Welcomed as rookies in Born Bad’s laps for its tenth anniversary, Cannibale now sits - comfortably so - at the big table of the label’s leading bands. Authors of totally adulterated shows, the Normans are set, with their new tracks, to keep firing up stages around the continent. In the future, for sure, this Life is Dead will have its own chapter in their dedicated anthropo-ethno-socio-musicological study - a somewhat post-mortem moment, in the full flow of creation.

For the study’s release, bet on the 6th of November 2037. The band will be 20 years old, Born Bad 30 - a promise for many great things to come. At the mention of this absurd anniversary date, found within Bandcamp’s Pandemonium, Nicolas’ bushy face lightens up, with an air masquerading George Hayduke - the tempestuous and dynamiter character of Edward Abbey. His wild, malicious eyes widen and so does his mouth in a predatory smile: “keep them guessing…”