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L’Appel Du Vide – Metro
Album | 29/03/2024 | It’s Eleven Records / Sabotage Records
33:31 | 9 tracks | Vinyl/Digital
Post Punk / Gloom Punk
Chemnitz, Germany
Desire within Concrete Walls
When looking at rectangular concrete buildings, naked walls, towns that were stricken by structural change, or empty streets, one does not always expect big dreams or passion being born there. But often it is the opposite, and the most melancholic, desolated, or gloomy spaces are fertile ground for colourful and vibrant ideas.
L’Appel Du Vide, the Gloom Punk quartet from Saxon university town Chemnitz, produce sounds that combine darkness and melancholia on the one hand, together with hope and spite on the other hand. Post Punk, Dark Punk, Gloom Punk, Doom Punk, you name it, for those who are fed with sadness.
Never mind Nostalgia, this is Moving On
L’Appel du Vide’s first EP Abwärtsspirale received a review on the old MangoWave page when it came out in May 2022. Almost two years later, the quartet is back with their first longplayer Metro. On nine tracks, L’Appel Du Vide move from standstill to activism and from paralysis to clearance kicks.
The songs are set in a sphere that is stuck between false nostalgia and false prophets while those who only seek happiness are being misguided or oppressed. Ideas of the good old times are wrapped up in fictional narratives, and current misfortune is used for mobilising the masses against scapegoats.
In this very real scenario, L’Appel Du Vide are amongst those who have not given up, and who raise their voices against fascist rabble-rousers and their copy cats. Metro contains nine songs that bring together the hope for a better future, the need to stand up and rise up, and the desolation that comes from fighting a very mighty enemy.
Doomed Surf Punks
The Gloom Punk presented by L’Appel Du Vide on Metro really comes up to its name. Sounds that are rooted deeply in early-80s Post Punk and Darkwave are enhanced in their darkness via a doomy atmosphere. But there is more than just pure darkness set to score. Garage and Surf motifs accelerate the sonic trip and reach high into the realms of sweat-dripping Hardcore Punk with a retrofuturist twist.
Metro is a sonic mirror of our contemporary times, and it is an honest status report of a world that desperately needs change. Furthermore, Metro contains plenty of sign-posts that may lead out of the darkness.
10/10 Mangoes
Credits
Friday – drums
Suse – bass, vocals, piano
Flatty – guitar, synths, sequencer
Rene – vocals
Maria – guest vocals on Verbrennen
Photos by Karsten Benkmann
Artwork by Katja Hommel
Recorded by Flatty at Studio Gloom, Chemnitz
Mix by Roland Wiegner at Tonmeisterei, Oldenburg
Master by Daniel Husayn at NLBF
We will dance again
Mia Schem
