Style: screamo, chamber music (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Beethoven, La Dispute, In Fear and Faith, Astor Piazzolla
Country: France
Release date: 14 February 2025
Sometimes an album sinks its teeth into you and latches on in a completely unexpected way. At just thirteen minutes and three tracks, Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne sank its jaws into my flesh as unexpectedly as a sweet golden retriever randomly taking on the temperament of an XL bully. I loved, and still regularly spin, Vivre Encore from the French quartet, but French screamo—even with gorgeous chamber instrumentation—had to be a fluke. There is no way a band with French screamo vocals could triumph on back-to-back releases, right?
Triumph Lorem Ipsum have. That I’d love the chamber instrumentation is a given, so let’s tranquilize the massive pink elephant in the room before discussing the composition further: the vocals are screamo. In French. And I can’t get enough of them. Maxime Foulon absolutely nails the full capacity for emotion in the human voice with his performance—singing about the heartbreaks and successes of parenthood. Even without understanding the language, Foulon’s eviscerating screams, aggressive barks, and wailing cleans evoke raw emotion in a primal way. While his vocals on “Tes Yeux Clos” are still impressive, the performative highlights are found on the back half of the EP. On “Et le Mal,” Foulon follows the rhythmic elegance of the drumming while utilizing the most of his emo-y cleans; accordingly, he takes the melodic lead from one of the instruments for the only time on the album by toning his voice down from the acerbic harshes. Finale “Tes Jours sans Moi” uses his voice to match the instrumental buildup, starting with hushed spoken word and only growing in drama and bombast until he lets out an anguished scream.
The instrumentation is simply divine Baroque-inspired chamber music. In contrast with the harshness of the vocals, the piano, violins, piano, drums, and acoustic guitars are playful in intricate counterpoint, but their defining aspect is a singular intensity I’ve heard in pitifully few albums ever—all of which I consider among the best of all time. Like Ad Nauseam’s Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est or Astor Piazzolla’s Tango: Zero Hour, the instrumentation on Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne is at once extremely dense moment-to-moment but also in possession of an unstoppable sense of forward propulsion. The arpeggiated finger-picked guitar and pizzicato violin often herald the unrelenting momentum, and at other times the violin and piano’s fight for the main melody command the pace, starting within the first minute of “Tes Yeux Clos.” Lorem Ipsum also utilize changing tempos and dynamics to their advantage, as in the violent acoustic trem picking to start “Et le Mal,” the spiraling violin at the end of the same track, or the beginning section of “Tes Jours sans Moi” with its “Moonlight Sonata”-esque pace.
As if Lorem Ipsum’s godly performances weren’t enough to solidify the EP as the release to beat this year, their songwriting is absurdly awesome, redolent of Ne Obliviscaris but in condensed form. For instance, “Tes Yeux Clos” begins alike “And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope” with its dynamic acoustics; soon after the first instrumental swell and scream, Alexander Foulon’s violin sweeps in with the melody, his style classical but raw like Tim Charles; and the final buildup of the song around 4:00 is simply sublime, leading into a crowd chant just like in “Libera.” Even the choice of chamber instrumentation equals to Ne Obliviscaris when they drop to just a string quartet in “Misericorde Pt. 1.” This is not to say Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne sounds like NeO, per se (or at all), but merely to compliment them that their songwriting has truly ascended the mortal plane into that of the gods. Spending a paragraph comparing Lorem Ipsum to a band with which they have almost nothing alike is a stretch, but I struggle to get across how profoundly my taste this record is—how godly the compositions are—without comparison.
Why oh why must the EP be only thirteen minutes long? I need more, and while I love Vivre Encore, it simply doesn’t show the same maturity Lorem Ipsum display here. At even a prim thirty minutes of this quality, I’d be tempted to slap a 10/10 on Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne, but as is, the EP is simply—and a tad frustratingly—not enough. Turning from so-beautiful-it-hurts to painfully raw in an instant, Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne has snared me, the release truly unique and Andy. Of course, Baroque screamo hasn’t really been done before Lorem Ipsum as far as I’m aware, but never have I fallen so in love with a short EP or heard traces of so many other albums I love in a package like this. Même Quand ta Main Quittera la Mienne is at once transcendent of and blind to genre.
Recommended tracks: all three
You may also like: Ad Nauseam, Musk Ox, So Hideous
Final verdict: 9/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram
Label: independent
Lorem Ipsum is:
Maxime Foulon • Piano / Vocals
Arthur Deshaumes • Guitar
Alexandre Foulon • Violin
Bastien Gournay • Drums
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