On the face of it, post-rock and screamo (in the traditional sense of the word) don’t seem like natural bedfellows, but, led by pioneers like City Of Caterpillar and Envy, and seen today in the form of bands like Pianos Become The Teeth, Vales, Suis La Lune and The Saddest Landscape, this genre-blending takes two furiously inventive niches and combines them into an even fresher sound. Parisians Bien À Toi (in English – Truly Yours), just a year old as a band, here present four-tracker ‘Diriger, Séduire, Convaincre’ (‘Direct, Seduce, Convince’) very much in the vein of the aforementioned with no set minimum price on Bandcamp, and the good news for cheap (or, indeed, free) music fans, it’s a wee cracker.
Commencing with ‘Dystopie’, a solely instrumental piece, this smoulders with the same intensity as ‘In The Absence Of Truth’-era Isis or Pelican, with the familiar ebbs and flows of latter-day Thrice. It may stretch the patience a tad; clocking in at just under 6 minutes, but the pay-off is absolutely magnificent around the 3-4 minute mark when arpeggiated guitars coruscate amidst a maelstrom of dissonant guitars and clangorous drums.
<a href=“http://bienatoi.bandcamp.com/album/diriger-s-duire-convaincre” data-mce-href=“http://bienatoi.bandcamp.com/album/diriger-s-duire-convaincre”>Diriger, Séduire, Convaincre by BIEN À TOI</a>
‘Pour Les Autres’ (For The Others) is where we finally hear a vocal, although drowned amidst tight, compact riffage, as is the way of traditionalist screamo. Dark atmospherics dominate this track’s sound unlike ‘Noyade Noyade’ which starts off on an almost sunny lilt. The vocals are once again right at the very bottom of the mix, almost unnoticably so, but this is perfectly acceptable as the instrumentation speaks a thousand words about these four young Frenchmen’s prodigious talent.
The eponymous track finishes off proceedings in manner that should be seem like familiar territory to those familiar to Swedish band Cult Of Luna, as it violently sways and swells from quiet to very loud indeed. Bien À Toi may not be the most original band out there, but riding on the crest of a wave of a scene undergoing something of a renaissance is sometimes no bad thing. A promising early effort with plenty of great ideas; a brighter approach to recording values and a slight reining-in of some lengthy passages could be all they require a change in, in order to impress a wider audience with a follow-up.
4/5
‘Diriger, Séduire, Convaincre’ by Bien À Toi is available now on Bandcamp.
Bien À Toi links: Official Website|Facebook|Bandcamp
Words by Ollie Connors (@OlliexCore)
