Part Beach Boys, part 60s girl groups, all sunshiney vibes and with a dusting of probably about a dozen sub-genres – the new Persica 3 album Beauty In The Noise is quite the amalgamation of tones, textures and styles.
Beginning with a somewhat grandiose instrumental (Beauty In The Noise), the album starts as it means to go on, opulent in its indulgent instrumentation and sumptuous sonic smorgasbord.
The first track blends seamlessly into the second (Hold On) and there are almost MGMT-plays-Unchained-Melody vibes to the music here. Eventually, a buzzsaw guitar is added and layer upon layer of glorious vocals and instrumentation intertwine to build something truly impressive.
ProBlem follows and we’re in Fleet Foxes territory. The pretty pounding percussion compliments the strings, acoustic guitar and harpsichord(?) arrangement beautifully. It’s a maximalist fever dream of a song in the best possible way.
Mirror, Mirror is up next and reminds us of The Beatles’ classic Norwegian Wood with an added dose of Bon Iver-style glitchy quirkiness. Again, it employs that buzzsaw guitar, adding an additional dimension.
Sundog is a quaint, almost-twee, sunny pop tune that has a retro pre-disco-Bee Gees feel to it. It also reminds us of Peter Bjorn & John and the way they would utilise tones from yesteryear to evoke a certain feel at moments in their music.
Hit It Sideways marks the beginning of the second side of the album. It’s a brief instrumental interlude that feels like it belongs somewhere in between The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Belle & Sebastian. At only 35 seconds, and fading in to begin, it’s over almost as quickly as it starts, which is a shame as it’s really very enjoyable.
This is followed by the fantastically titled Twice As Bright & Half As Long which again has distinct Peter Bjorn & John vibes. The interplay between the male and female vocals works really well and again, the distorted guitar is used expertly – it’s just the right amount.
Phoenix Audition Song (another great title) does actually give us acoustic Phoenix vibes (listen to their KEXP or NPR sessions for additional context) and seems to also channel Swedish indie-pop starlets The Concretes. It’s cute and jolly and very easy to enjoy.
The penultimate song – Teach Me – is fantastically old-skool sounding whilst at the same time being obviously brave and new. The melody reminds us of another Beatles tune – the sometimes overlooked Don’t Let Me Down – but with something added that’s very difficult to pinpoint. Like a memory, you can’t quite place or a name you can’t quite put to a face. Also worth pointing out that the keys in this song are working absolute wonders.
Angel Falls closes out the album and the strings are stunning. The whole track is lovely – the relationship between the individual parts is obviously very well-considered and doesn’t happen by accident. But those strings are up there with Richard Hawley’s Coles Corner (bravo Olivier Lauriot dit Prévost) and make for an exceptional closing track.
Beauty In The Noise contains elements of dream pop, post-rock, electro, jangle pop, doo-wop, baroque pop, classical, psych rock, and choral music – whilst somehow maintaining it’s own distinct sonic identity. This Parisian project is as ambitious as it is ambiguous with very little known about its creator (Arthur Dubois). What we do know is that he clearly knows his stuff. He’s a student of the game and it shows. An incredibly impressive sophomore release.
The physical release is especially beautiful and can be obtained from Hidden Bay records.
Written by Kinda Grizzly
