FOURNAISE "Lang Fanm" 2023

FOURNAISE, an experimental post-rock/noise duo, made me hungry for more one year ago with the video released for the title "Pas envie De Parler", with a very simple and minimalist configuration. Indeed, FOURNAISE is a female bass/drums/vocals duo... whose influences were intended to come directly from Alternative Rock/Indus/Grunge of the 90's and artists such as Melvins, Babes in Toyland, L7, Nirvana but also Nine Inch Nails, Godflesh, Swans... good, heavy!
I was waiting for more with a certain impatience and now "Lang Fanm", the band's first album, is now out... Musically, that's the continuaiton of what the duo started with "Pas envie de Parler " and "La Fournaise" (two titles that you can find on Youtube), a heavy, repetitive and unhealthy style with influences from Godflesh, Swans, Daughters among others, and where it would have been tempting to think that this bass/drums duo formula could be exhausted over a longer time frame and quickly become boring... we realize that this is not the case and that the ability to compose homogeneous but never similar titles is here and well present...
Admittedly, there is this "bass/drums" base, these female vocals, alternately sung, howled, spoken and always enraged on raw and direct texts - to make your blood run cold sometimes, so much they do express a palpable discomfort - declined in French but also in Creole, something quite rare to be underlined, which agree perfectly with the violence and the volcanic side of the music... That's for the main content of the album but there is also some quite surprising titles like "Maido", sung in Creole and musically very imbued with this same culture... a kind of industrial/rock-noisy sauce with tropical flavors, with this very traditional way of singing on tribal rhythms .. which intervenes in the middle of the album and appears like a breath of (a little more) fresh air in the middle of this surge, fueled by feelings of frustration, helplessness and ill-being... or even "Mové Zerb" which is eyeing more towards hard-core/aggressive punk horizons...
You will have understood it, FOURNAISE is not "joyful" and songs like "Coeur Cargo", "Le Béton Sur Nos Voix", "La Funambule", are for me, the most representative of the style of the band, with these dissonant, repetitive atmospheres and sounds and others more "noisemakers" ("Abyss Male") that will hammer your mind until you can no longer take it...
This first album is really a success, FOURNAISE knows how to make its way apart in the current musical landscape, mixing with class and talent what was best in the 90's while bringing a very personal and contemporary touch... "Lang Fanm" could be the soundtrack of the post-covid years and its ambient slump... and turns out to be a good therapy in response to these current ailments.