Daran - Grand Hôtel Apocalypse

I'm not going to hide it, Daran has been my favourite singer for a long time. So each new album of his is for me both a pleasure and an apprehension. Pleasure to hear him again, apprehension of disappointment. I had described how and why disappointment had largely dominated the pleasure in the previous one, and it dates back 7 years already. I cannot say, however, whether this distance doubles these two feelings or whether it diminishes them.

On the sleeve, Daran as a child. On the back, Daran now, in the same pose. We could play the 7 differences. The guitar has replaced the gun. Good. “This machine kills fascists”, Woody Guthrie wrote on his.

Inside, no big surprise, we find the Daran style, a French rock that we now know very well, but with some characteristics specific to this album:
1) Done all on his own, except for the drums. And lyrics of course. So the "power trio" Daran wanted is less a bass-guitar-drums... than a singer-songwriter-drummer!
2) texts written by PYL, a brilliant creator of links between words, but this time based on the music. Until then he had written them "from scratch", which forced Daran to compose with them, to torture the metric, even the rhyme, so the phrasing sticks to his music. Not that here. This (involuntary) change of method is therefore rather fortunate.
3) Daran's watchword, his self-constraint: "no pedal". Except for the bass drum and the hi-hat I hope (ha ha).

As for singing, in the 90s, I used to say: "Daran, he's a guy, when he wails, it's beautiful!" Because he did it appropriately and sparingly. This is perhaps less the case in this album ("Choisis", "Je Voulais Te Dire"). His voice hasn't changed but some questionable choices will probably lead me to prefer when it becomes thin ("En Rêve").

Textually as well as musically, we reconnect a little with the boarder-"Y A des Chaises Pour s'Asseoir" spirit of the beginnings ("Dimanche Soir"). From childhood to the aging adult, through his teenage years that watch him ("Tu Fais Semblant"), the record is globally immersed in memories, regrets and renunciations.

I must admit that several tracks weigh down the album a little unfortunately, like the jerk "Hôtel Apocalypse" in which nothing will be spared us, from endless vocal holds to a ridiculous “Pas de panique Monique”. I zap.

I saved the best for last: "L’Humain Qui Gêne". A good wriggling music and a really original text. At first, given the title, I thought it would be a social song about the human factor that hinders capitalism. I was wrong. It's an environmental song in which the planet speaks! A very good idea. No doubt, it's this kind of songs that have made Daran my favorite singer for a long time, I'm not going to hide it.