C'ÉTAIENT DE TRÈS GRANDS VENTS

The first question I asked myself when listening to this album was "does C'Étaient De Très Grands Vents possess "shubbage"? Does it take you to that dark and eerie realm where malevolent trombones batter you with their slides, and concepts like 'sunshine' and 'puppies' seem insane and from another dimension? The answer was 'yes'. This album has shubbage. I was suitably shubbed. Does that make this creation an automatic personal favorite, considering that their previous album is beyond incredible and the very essence of shubbage in which all other albums possessing some form of shubbage are measured against? Not really.

The creepy dissonance remains intact. The vibe is oppressive, lonely and dreary. This time, though, the structure is often lacking, causing the tunes to spread thin like a cloud. Without a base structure, some of these pieces sound like the band mistakenly recorded themselves tuning their instruments and then stopped recording just before playing the actual song. Atmospheric but meandering.

That's not always the case. "D'un Seul Et Meme Souffle" has a melodic pattern, and it's amazingly dark. Music to conjure nightmares. Also, "Promethee" has signature vocals from their previous album to reel in the track to a cohesive tightness. As an entire opus though, it's quite difficult to listen to this album after a period of time...there's a lot of quiet moments that seem to drag on with no theme except possibly wandering a wasteland at night. As background music for a haunted house amusement ride, it has more than enough shubbage to be the most memorable aspect, disturbing adults while their kids look at themselves through warped mirrors. As a recommendation, it's good, but not the first place to start with this band. That would be Les Morts Vont Vite, which is shubtastic.