Texte : Susanne van Hooft

Le groupe australien CLAMM a sorti son nouvel album « Beseech Me » aujourd’hui, via Meat Machine. Comme on peut s’y attendre de la part d’un groupe de post-punk, on y trouve beaucoup de riffs de guitare, des lignes de basse lourdes et un chant énervé. Qu’y a-t-il de plus à dire sur cet album ?

For ten songs long Jack Summers (vocals / guitar), Miles Harding (drums) and Maisie Everett (vocals / bass) navigate the boundaries between anger and softness. The band seems eager to give a certain feeling, even more so than to spell out where their own frustration comes from. For example, title track ‘Beseech me’ hints at desire and solidarity. That the lyrics are not always logical, singer Summers admits, but he couldn’t make anything else out of it. Other lyrics just would not have been right. The tumultuous drums and gnawing, nagging guitars certainly manage to add urgency to their music. And you can shout ‘I Feel Better Now’ a hundred times, but that doesn’t immediately make it true. We tend to reply with frowns: « Sure, sit down, have a drink. » but CLAMM rumbles on to the next song. With the fierce, alarming guitars as the backdrop to the fulminating Summers, ‘Keystone Pulse’ is the album’s most ominous track. Due to the long run-up of the increasingly exciting guitars, ‘Confused’ sounds like a perfect opening of a concert, or of an album of course. This album asks you to turn the volume to its maximum, close your eyes and imagine yourself in a small stuffy room where people bump into each other in the old-fashioned way. That’s exactly where this music stands out from the crowd. No, ‘Beseech Me’, isn’t innovative, but it conforms to all post punk rules and fans of IDLES, Crack Cloud and Thee Oh Sees will be able to truly appreciate it.

Meat Machine