le blog pastallconcerns

          How to illustrate moments of despair and loneliness? If those moments need a special music, then Immune is  a perfect fit. Moments when you are walking on your own, looking for an original soundtrack to dream and cry to,  or when you are thinking about your life and taking endless walks need a bonus atmosphere that the band sets up in the deepest and most visceral way. Don’t even try not to be hypnotized by all of their tunes, that is impossible…

            Immune was founded in Lyon, France, in 2001. After their first self-produced demo and several gigs with different artists such as Matt Elliott, Piano Magic and Shannon Wright, Sound Inside is their first official album on excellent Belgian label Stilll, one of the most active labels in that country. And that’s precisely what Immune deserves the most: some recognition and an enthusiastic structure to promote them. Listening to their so-personal and moving long-length effort will help you understand why…

            All songs plod along, in a minimalist and sad though comforting way. In the first song, You Landscape, Immune introduces the main elements of its music and universe. The guitar may remind the listener of Travis and introduces an electronic and light drum section, helping the song find its own structure and original pattern. Everything here is a matter of understatement and comfort, and the violin part which surges up later into the song keeps this feeling growing. There are no overwhelming or exhuberant arrangements: each instrument is here to become a voice in the song, a part of the musical language that the band needs to create. So is Jean-Sebastien's singing, very familiar for those who enjoy The Smiths or The Dears, though it also sounds very much like Mark Hollis as well. Sweetness ans sadness seem to work together in this introspective universe. Acoustic Memories, thanks to its hypnotizing piano melody, completes the listener's first impression, by mixing influences like Hood and Godspeed you! Black Emperor with the violin parts, Mark Hollis with the drums and the voice. Therefore the song moves us and penetrates our soul to take us by the hand and bring us to a cosy world of tears and sorrow. This song is probably one of the most moving songs I have ever heard on an album of this kind…

            But Immune doesn't need to make the listener feel deeply sad; their music is sincere, impulsive, and runs as slowly as a peaceful river. Each instrument introducing the song puts a basis that others follow, bringing their own part and expression, like a blues improvisation, a 3 A.M. gig in a dark and cosy club where only a few half-asleep people are sitting on their own. This is what Immune's music inspires: comfort and cosiness.The influence of jazz and blues music can also be found in the drums, in songs like Through Tides and Wandering Clouds.

            Other influences can be heard in Sound Inside, and that is what the band needs to express, perhaps in order to say thanks to bands which, directly or not, helped them to become what they intended to be. This can be considered as a strength or a weakness, because it seems that sometimes songs are to close to their influences, even if it doesn't affect the music's originality, as can be seen with the radiohead-like drums in Streams Go Blind  and Thousand Leaves, while Headfirst's intro sounds like Sigur Ros’s Untitled No8 in their second album, for example. But the band's strength lies in creating a new musical universe based on those influences: the penetrating keyboards waves in Headfirst plunge the listener into a threatening and relenting place, ominous with a pervading feeling of an unknown threat which can never be singled out. This part of the song is certainly the most impressive way for the band to prove how to use influences in order to integrate them and create a new song, based on mixing some music you thought you had heard before and a brand new atmosphere.

            Although the album is full of sad and depressive moments, there are also periods of brightness and peace: a tiny piano melody at the end of Wandering Clouds, perhaps the only moment when the piano is played so high in the entire album, makes the listener feel relaced and hopeful, before introducing the Hood-like track Thousand Leaves, in which Jean-Sebastien's voice is closer to that of Christopher Adam than ever.