le blog pastallconcerns

Sometimes, irony, self-consciousness, and a sarcastic mind can be something of a plague. Even though that is what may help you avoid being lured into listening to the consumer-friendly, ready-made sentimentalism of such flavourless bands as Keane or to the bombastic hystrionics of Muse, it may also lead you to overlook earnest, ambitious, and sometimes over-sincere bands, precisely because you start questioning their very honesty: to a self-conscious mind, a lack of restraint, contrition, or the sheer will to create some immediate gorgeous, poignant and heart-rending music that would not appeal to so-called or self-proclaimed specialists or discerning minds, but to everyone, is utterly questionable, not to say suspicious. You see, we sarcastic, self-conscious people enjoy being singled out and woed, we thrive on bands who display the same behaviour and (fake) misdemeanour as we do, and feel slightly embarrassed, completely disconcerted and utterly at a loss when faced with people or bands who dare expose themselves and not bother with the very precise codes we have set up – you see, we like picking out, but we hate being addressed to.

That is probably how the cynic in you will first respond to Life Was The Answer, Jullian Angel’s Behemoth of a record, his second effort released by the excellent French label Another Records. The cynic in me was certainly taken aback and even recoiled at times at first listen, embarrassed by so much unabashed honesty and lack of understatement. Even though all songs definitely have a folk edge to them, and are mostly based on accoustic guitar, Life Was the Answer bears very little resemblance to the Nick Drake-influenced acts that have been blossoming over the last few years: instead of trying to seduce us by gently taking us by the hand through warm, hazy atmospheres, and shy and self-apologetic vocals, Jullian Angel’s music is everything but low-key: it heads straight for your guts, is unabashedly and overtly ambitious and epic in scale, and stands in front of you with its big, throbbing and romantic heart on its sleeves. It demands your complete and immediate surrender. It doesn’t aim at slowly hypnotizing you into loving it, it aims at making you wonder and admire, the songs are not designed to make you feel slightly melancholy or comfortably happy, they are meant to make you feel crushed and forlorn – as is the case in Checking Your Soul or An Everlasting Breath - or utterly elated and blissful – as in Like The Christians or Born On The Seventh Day. Listening to Life Was The Answer for the first time is a truly amazing and fascinating experience. So the cynic in me played the record five times. In a row. And has kept listening to it over and over again ever since, to such an extent indeed that it has almost become a kind of obsession. 

What strikes the listener immediately when he is playing Life Is The Answer for the firt time is how amazingly good the sound is, and how breath-takingly beautiful Jullian Angel’s voice is. Life Is The Answer does not sound like the self-produced long player of a solo artist, but like the effort of a full band at the height of its glory. The producing skills of Jullian Angel are terrific – I guess that many bands would love to have their record produced by him -, and the music is top notch throughout the thirteen tracks of an album that clocks in at 59 minutes. No two songs are alike, and none of them sounds as a gap filler, and you are left marvelling at the level of dedication and work that was put in them: they are clearly the work of a perfectionist, as every single note sounds carefully thought-over, perfectly in place to have a maximum overwhelming impact on the listener. The arrangements are lush, glorious and fit perfectly the mood of the songs, which tracks like Links, Being Part Of History or Drugs testify to. The musicianship is overall excellent – not only is Jullian a flabbergasting singer, but he plays amazingly well almost all instruments bar the strings in the record. Jullian Angel’s warm and acrobatic voice is stunningly impressive, and you can tell when listening to his record that he knows his voice is one of his numerous assets: powerful and vibrant with feeling, his voice doesn’t have much to do with the shy, whispery vocals that can be heard on other great French folk outfits such as Saw or Derek Delano: Jullian’s voice is definitely self-assured and self-assertive, and might sometimes remind the listener of Joseph Arthur on Pay For Life, Mark Eitzel on Fragments, Johnny Cash on Some Dead Survive or even Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry on Links. However, Jullian Angel’s influences never overshadow his music: there is undoubtedly a hint of Radiohead in Born On The Seventh Day, a taste of REM in Jullian’s vocal delivery on Mystic Friend, but the music is definitely Jullian Angel’s own, and Life Was The Answer is unquestionably a very unique piece of work.

Therefore when the record ends with the amazingly beautiful finale of aptly titled Final Place, the listener is left filled with awe and amazement, and the cynic in you has been won over, if not crushed and annihilated by the sweeping epic scope of the songs, which is mirrored in the lyrics and the themes tackled by the the songs – war, religion, fate. It must take a lot of courage to put out a record like Life Was The Answer, and it was undeniably a perilous and difficult process, filled with doubts, as can be seen on Jullian’s blog – no wonder the record deals so much with war,. Indeed, as he sings on Mystic Friend, Jullian Angel is here to ‘take (us) to the promised land’: instead of aiming at being merely pretty and enjoyable, Jullian Angel heads for the sublime, which is indeed a very risky and tricky journey, as setting the standards so high cannot but involve taking risks, including those of sometimes sounding bombastic. Even the quietest songs like Links or Pay For Life have a mystic, almost religious edge to them, while tracks like Mystic Friend or Drugs are downright heroic and monumental. Now, there is a thin line between being sublime and ridicule, between grandeur and hystrionics, between gorgeous beauty and bad taste, which Jullian Angel is very well aware of, and the listener cannot but wonder at how gifted he is at not crossing that border: the amazingly beautiful opener Links is one breath short of sounding like a ballad by Metallica or Chris Cornell, were it not for Jullian’s unique imprint on the melody and his solid instrumental work. In a record that overtly ambitious and daring, there cannot but be a full missteps, and the cynic in me still finds Mystic Friends a bit over the top, as well as some very short parts of Drugs and Like The Christians.

Nevertheless, on almost all songs, Jullian Angel actually reaches his goal, and some of the songs on the record actually brought the cynic in me close to tears: Fragments is a glory of a song, a breathtaking, haunting dark sun of an anthem, full of rage, anger and despair, throbbing with passion. So are the utterly forlorn Checking Your Soul, a perfect song from its opening plucked guitar to its choir finale, Some Dead Survive, Jullian Angel’s take on Leonard Cohen’s the partisan, on which he sings as though he had actually fought the war, or An Everlasting Breath, sung with former label mate Valerie Leclerq from brilliant Belgian band Half Asleep. Not only are those songs strokes of genius, but they definitely grow on the listener, and so does that gem of a record as a whole. Taking so many risks, being bold and brave enough to assert one’s art and feelings without any contrition or self-restraint, whatever the result is, is already a feat in its own right, but it was also really worth it, as it has enabled Jullian Angel to release a record which puts him on par with bold, adventurous songwriters such as Joseph Arthur or Mark Eitzel. Life Was The Answer is a record that the cynic in me will keep on surrending to, marvelling at, cherishing and listening for a long, long time. 

Standout tracks: Pay For Life - Fragments - Some Dead Survive - Checking Your Soul - An Everlasting Breath - Final Place