Chaos reigns at No Vale Nada.
For their third album, Quidam, Davy (vocals/noise machines), Noze (guitar), Hugo (guitar/keyboards), and Chrysal (drums) have teamed up with the labels Itawak Records, Vox Project, Araki Records, and Ace Of Wands.
The album opens with the simply titled Intro, which immediately displays its dissonant and surprising character before fading to near inaudibility, then transitions into Sans contact, a highly aggressive track where riffs and screams collide amid heavy doses of noise elements. The rhythm section is also unpredictable, slowing down to become heavier or, conversely, racing ahead before the final that leads into Quidam, the eponymous track that resumes the explosive approach, constantly shifting pace to pound us as it sees fit. The track is very short and quickly gives way to Les deux-tiers, a new composition that offers a slightly more structured approach, yet doesn’t skimp on the most abrasive passages, even including heavy distortion on the break that’s supposed to be calmer. Sortie d’affaire unleashes a raw, infectious energy in the style of gripping post-hardcore, but once again the track passes by rather quickly, just like 03, which offers a more melancholic albeit slightly unsettling break that doesn’t even reach two minutes. We return to violence with Sombre héros, a vengeful track that regularly explodes, offering an irregular yet catchy flow, though it ends with a more experimental and almost chaotic final that slows down before transitioning into Un culte, where the sound becomes wilder once again. Here again, the band takes pleasure in shifting gears and unleashing waves of raw aggression before a long, calmer yet very strange and noise-driven passage that leads into Imaginaire trouble, a track that begins as a veritable sonic tangle, then becomes a moment of anxiety, and finally erupts once more, this time with a sound more firmly rooted in Sludge. Once the storm has passed, Consommer les rituels takes over and subjects us to a hellish heaviness coupled with distant vocal parts that complement the screams before the notes fly once more into the finally calmed atmosphere of the long track, which will shower us with one last dose of noise before surrendering and closing out the album.
It had been a long time since I’d listened to such organized chaos! No Vale Nada is clearly not an accessible band, and the musicians make that clear with Quidam, which relentlessly blasts our eardrums to better showcase its uniqueness.
70/100