Experimental French duo Chevreuil‘s approach to album construction owes as much to their interests in architecture, sculpture and other art as it does to music. Having produced and released four albums back in the early 2000s, they went on hiatus for the best part of twenty years before reconvening for this year’s Stadium, which is an extraordinary return to form, taking their acoustic drums and four-speaker electric guitar set-up and forging a claustrophobic, almost constructivist suite.
Over sixteen tracks and a little under an hour, their insistent distorted guitars and brutal, thuggish drums revel in a sort of set construction that feels as though they are squeezing too much sound into too small a space that the guitars and drums seem to take it in turns to add a brick or slide in a block and watch the edifice gradually grow. Although starting out in a rather brutal fashion, it is still able to move from harshness to sweetness in a short hop. The guitar tone changes as the album progresses, but these don’t really feel like songs and more like structural ideas using sound which drop to silence and then rebuild from a slightly different perspective.
There is no standard pattern here; so from the idea of solid construction the sounds can drift into a place where it is more like they are erecting clouds with amorphous anti-rhythms stacked and piled in the gradually shifting sky. Moments of monotonous repetition with guitars alternating sharp and blunt refocus the listener, imitating insinuating skewers or the dropping of heavy rocks; while at other moments we are surprised by the eruption of chugging Earache-style riffs that will be thrilling for those of an apocalyptic guitar nature.
The guitars clearly go through a number of effects, because there are moments where they sound more like synths piecing an awkward progress together from awkward and disparate notes as drums plod the simplest of rhythms, allowing a macro focus on the gradual construction. Brief guitar solos appear from nowhere, but dissected and abstracted; they appeal as much to lovers of classic guitar as to those who require a little more conceptualism from the guitar / drum interface. The beauty is that that the are in no way constrained by the old-fashioned notion of ordinary rhythmic progress or melodic sensibility, and instead a whole new world opens up.
As the guitar lines overlap, so nuanced and subtle timbral details are released. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the drums would be overwhelmed by this insidious sonic creep, but far from it and will instead instigate a passage of numbing repetition, and even those echo with extra details as time rushes by. The huge variety of guitar sounds and ideas is impressive from such simple ingredients and it really does keep the listener engaged as atmospheres change, including a surprisingly astral direction that finds the duo’s sound lightening by the moment.
The album definitely evolves as the tracks stretch by; but somehow it is still recognisably them, although I doubt anybody else could sound like this. It was interesting seeing Angine De Poitrine recently and as enjoyable as it was to experience their mantric progressive joy, relentless drumming and crazy outfits from a guitar and drum duo, Stadium is still preferable because they are taking a recognised format and twisting it very much to their own design.
As ever, cmptrstdnts have done an exquisite job with the packaging and Stadium is certainly deserving of such a lavish product. Let us hope it is not another twenty years before they regale us with more.
-Mr Olivetti-
