Leroy Se Meurt – Voué à rouiller [Mannequin Records]

After two remarkable EPs on the Dutch label Enfant Terrible (2019 and 2020), one on Switzerland’s Lux Rec (2020), several tracks on various compilations and around sixty concerts all over Europe, the Parisian duo Leroy Se Meurt now offers an updated version of his electronic punk, for the first time in long format, on the Berlin label Mannequin Records. This first album, named Voué à Rouiller, sees the band improve its existing formula, while exploding its own shackles.

Their EBM, post-punk, electro remains, but the tone hardens severely. Abrasive rock pieces are now added to the mix, where electric sounds rumble and seek their place in the middle of this electronic discharge where synths, samplers and other drum machines reign. The minimalist, straight-cut compositions systematically hit the mark. The texts, in French or Turkish, still evoke the mysticism or the darkness that characterized them until now, but today we feel a new force, like a revolt that is emerging.

From the opening, the very post-punk “Baskı Iklimi”, sung in Turkish and carried by an unstoppable groove, puts us in the mood. It will be dark and uncompromising. As if to set the record straight, comes the Franco-Turkish “Yanan Kurban”, with its monstrous bass line and chorus, which pierces the sky with its few synth notes. The next track “Kaçıs” allows a little breathing space, but it will be short due to the suffocating “Crève tes Yeux et Regarde” which closes side A.

The other half of the record is no less rhythmic, starting with “Veuve 909”, a repetitive track, with clear effectiveness and definitely psychotic. With an almost doubled tempo and guitars abused by the machines, “Liquide” does not intend to calm things down. It is only at the slower, but darker, “Bencil Iliski”, a track in two parts, half hypnosis – half malaise, that things settle down a little. The record closes with a krautrock/acid hybrid, “Orage”, which takes “Leroy Se Meurt” to a new land, that still retains the gloominess.

The record does not bother with an introduction, interlude or ambient passage, but the variety offered in its 37 minutes guarantees an experience full of energy and without repetition where we alternate styles, sounds, atmospheres, tempos, and even languages, always at the service of violent efficiency.

Release date: November 24th, 2023.