la Maison Tellier - Avalanche

It is an avalanche indeed. Not a snow avalanche, but a note avalanche, a word avalanche, an avalanche of metaphysics and American wide-open spaces (or the idea of them). Prepare yourself for travelling to the sound of their very good guitar arpeggios ("Amazone", "Garçon Manqué"), or their tonic counterpoints from the trumpet player Frederic [Leopold Tellier].

Here is something endearing I have trouble describing, between folk and French chanson, carried from beginning to end by the gentle voice of Yannick [Helmut Tellier], sometimes with some inflections à la Gerard Manset ("J'Ai Rêvé d'Avalanches"). An album permanently at a balance point. On the one hand, “the joy of the simple fact of living”, beautiful and sure, one of those which make you kiss a frog, and not even to conjure a princess! On the other hand, these moments when you wonder who you are, where you come from and what you’re doing on earth ("Quelqu'un d'Autre").

If "Cinq Est le Numéro Parfait", this 5th album of our 5 mates is not perfect all the same. Much as its 6 first songs are good, hit-like, with a music which seems to flow easily, the rest, yet not bad, seems a little more convoluted, either in the lyrics, or in the music. With as epilogue an interlacing of electric guitar and horns ("Taros"). It was an avalanche indeed.