Mascara leaves its mark on everyday life.
Created in 2019 for cathartic purposes, the group brings together Valentin Beaucourt (vocals/guitar), Guillaume Guirao (guitar), Maxime Lebredonchel (bass), Clément Aulnois (drums), and Vincent Juvillier (samples/synths) released their first album, Going Postal, via Fever LTD. in 2026.
The band hits hard right from the start with Nova Ardor, a heavy and haunting first composition that pounds our minds with a brutal but catchy groove before calming down slightly to welcome the vocals. There are a few more dissonant touches, but also some very trippy ones, such as on Marrow, which begins with keyboards before building a very melancholic Post-Rock/Shoegaze-oriented base, relying on transcendent harmonics. Mass follows suit with a barely comprehensible vocal sample drowned out by synthesizers, leading us to Nerium, where saturation returns with a vengeance, burying us under a mountain of haunting sounds that perfectly accompany the vocals. We notice a fairly similar approach on N_E_S_N_S_J_W, a track that is initially very accessible but ultimately quite abrasive in certain passages, contrasting with the vocal parts before being stopped in its tracks by Dream, where the atmosphere instantly calms down. The distant sample reappears, allowing us to collect our thoughts before The Static, a much more catchy composition that develops simple but effective tones, sometimes hazy and dreamlike, sometimes much heavier and more ponderous, but always linked by the soothing vocals. The eponymous track Going Postal offers a short Industrial intro before returning to its more trippy sounds, but we find a certain dose of violence in the thicker riffs, once again fueling the intoxicating disparity with the combo, then the album comes to an end on Withdrawal, picking up the sampled male voice, but this time responding to a female voice, then the keyboards end up taking over, leading us towards this inexorable silence.
Going Postal is my first encounter with Mascara, and while I can easily identify the influences, I find myself easily lulled by their soft and airy tones, while also appreciating the more violent passages. The interludes can sometimes break the rhythm, but the album flows well.
75/100
