Images du Futur

by 
AlbumMar 05 / 201310 songs, 45m 17s
Indie Rock
Popular Highly Rated

By blurring the lines between all their influences and freely changing their attack for each song, Montreal\'s Suuns continue to have fun with effect pedals and an unorthodox songwriting approach. Despite this freewheelin\' worldview, a tune like \"Mirror Mirror\" packs a powerful, cohesive blow against the empire. Is it guitar rock? Is it synth rock? Do the mumbled, deliberately obscured vocals hide a gorgeous pop melody? Rare is the instrument that makes itself clear. Liam O\'Neill serves up an unadulterated beat for the otherwise vague \"Edie\'s Dream,\" but that\'s his job in the group: offering a steadying hand to a wandering ensemble. \"2020\" pastes together a nearly coherent track, but it actually excels as the arrangement varies from sparse notes cascading through the universe to forward-moving beats that suggest there\'s a pop band somewhere hiding behind the art-rock experiments. Had Pink Floyd made its way in the computer age, it likely would\'ve chosen Suuns\' path of computer-assisted sound painting. \"Holocene City\" leans on a classic rock guitar lick that eventually leads to gorgeous vocal moves and a quizzical keyboard line.

PHYSICAL ORDERS FROM CANADA PLEASE ORDER FROM HERE : www.secretcityrecords.com/shop/images-du-futur/ Images du Futur builds upon the intensity of Suuns' 2010 debut, but often does so through new textures and subtler dynamic maneuvering. Album standout "Edie's Dream" begins with a single bass line repeated from which layers build & rise — first drums, then a wash of white noise; echoes of guitar, then chanted vocals. The song's clever shifts are jazz-touched and delicate, almost subliminal. It all makes for a stark, skeletal boogie — more an astral projection than a song. "Edie's Dream" exemplifies the restraint of which Suuns is capable and works to make the unhinged moments all the more devastating. Lauded by Pitchfork and NME — the former saying "few bands this young are operating on quite this scale, and fewer still have the brass-- and the patience-- to pull off a big, glitzy, complex record like Zeroes QC," and the latter declaring them 2011's Best New Band — Suuns have deepened their approach, using minimalist techniques to create maximalist works. Produced once again by Jace Lasek from Besnard Lakes, Images blasts out of the gate with "Powers of Ten," laying out a sort of manifesto for the record in the very first lines: "Got it together/I read in the paper/all of theses strangers/stranger and stranger.../No, no, no, no, how you try and remember/how all of these pieces/all fit together." Shemie says of the process, "As a band we were trying to look at our music from further and further away, seeing more details in the picture as we expanded the landscape."

5.0 / 10

On their second record, Montreal's Suuns mix the mechanical pulse of krautrock, post-punk's fractured syntax, and unorthodox instrumental techniques in a manner that brings to mind Clinic.

9 / 10

Dangerous and compelling like a first cigarette or fumbled sexual encounter, these tracks exist in a half-light, a nocturnal fog a step removed from lucid thought.

Montreal art rockers Suuns' 2010 debut Zeroes CQ was a little lost in a sea of influences, but broke up messy Deerhoof-meets-Clinic jams with refreshing open-aired moments.

If at first you don't succeed, try again? That seems to be the motto of Montreal's Suuns. 2011's excellent Zeroes QC was criminally overlooked by the wider record-buying populace, but the band clearly liked how it sounded so have pretty much reassembled the template. They get away with it too, thanks to the borderline schizophrenic formula at their disposal; one minute they're hammering away like latter-period Fugazi (Powers of Ten), the next they're noodling with pulsing electronica (2020). And it works, in some cases rather marvellously.

6 / 10

Suuns' debut album was an enjoyable, if somewhat forgettable, slab of pulsing modern rock; it was great while you were listening, but rarely would you think to throw it on at home.

6.5 / 10

Suun’s debut full-length, Zeroes QC, stood out with a volatile mélange of electronic experimentation and big-guitar rockist leanings.

Album Reviews: Suuns - Images Du Futur

Images du Futur, Secretly Canadian ****

9 / 10