2,5 years after our interview for IDIOTEQ, we’re pleased to re-introduce French emotional screamo / post-hardcore four-piece ALESKA, whose second record ‘Construire Ou Détruire’ was released earlier this SUmmer through Seven Years Aweak Records & Zegema Beach Records! Produced by ALESKA, recorded and mixed by Nicolas Buono (member of the band) and mastered by Magnus Lindberg (CULT OF LUNA), the offering is rich in ideas and textures, and manages to convey a profound emotional reach without resorting to cheap sentimentality. Mesmerized by its underlying and undeniable sense of harsh beauty, we asked the band to share their first-hand track by track commentary. Here’s what we’ve got.
(RE)COMMENCEMENT – RESTART
This first track is an introduction composed with a sample of a part of the last song of the vinyl version (DETRUIRE). It’s a symbolic one because it introduces the idea of a loop, an eternal circle.
INDISPENSABLES – INDISPENSABLE
This track is the first song we have composed. It’s the easy listening song with a big Screamo vibe and some Post Rock in it. It talks about the absolute necessity to have more than other people we are living with whatever the price to pay. The world doesn’t need to us to exist and things were before us and still be there after us. It finishes on a more optimistic idea: if we fight against the individualism, we may live better.
VANITE ILLUSOIRE – ILLUSORY VANITY
This song is a kind of a twin of INDISPENSABLES: the structure is almost the same, there is some Screamo vibe too and lyrics are talking about the same thing in a less optimism way, like all hope is gone. It’s a statement that it’s meaningless to want people to change the world we are living in, the capitalism is accepted by the most, individualism is a virtue, integrity become elitism, modesty is a weakness, we are living in the illusion of living with each other every day.
Continued below…
LA DERNIERE LUEUR – THE LAST GLOW
This song has begun with a jam and is a blend of Post-Rock and Screamo. She has a long atmospheric introduction with clean vocals followed by a more tense part until his end. Lyrics can be understood by many ways depending of things you have lived and are talking about the fact that the end of something is always the beginning of another thing but influenced by your experience. When all is dark and black, there will always be a new glow to light a new way.
CONSTRUIRE – TO BUILD
CONSTRUIRE is maybe the most experimental track of the album. It’s a mix of so many styles like Screamo, Post Rock, Post Hardcore and even Post Metal. Structures are wild and it reminds tracks of our first album (mostly QUE RESTE T-IL?). In the concept of the album (if we can talk about concept album) CONSTRUIRE has a central place. There is always a way to rebuild something, to change and try to be a better person. You have to build something new, to change your mind to restart all. If you succeed, you will gain something, but at the moment when you realize it, it will be too late because there will be a new goal to achieve. It’s the deconstructing step until you rebuild something new again. In the end you are always destroying things in your life, you have an idea of yourself that is moving every day and you are never satisfied. It’s like an obsession that will end at your last day. It’s a cycle that you can’t break: build, deconstruct, rebuild, destroy.
UN ETERNEL RECOMMENCEMENT – AN ETERNAL RESTART
It’s the shortest song and it’s dynamic one. It talks about realizing that we are living in a cycle like on CONSTRUIRE. It doesn’t make you happy or sad but you become a cold person with no feeling. You feel trapped in your life and even if you build new things you are not better, everything loses its taste. All seems boring and the only thing that left is to repeat the cycle and keep the good things in your life. Also, it speaks about being kind with the persons close to you, your friends and family because they are all you have. We travel on the same boat and we have to help each other despite of the disgusting nature of human being.
DETRUIRE – DESTROY
This is a long atmospheric Post-Rock song. It’s the result of a jam and was built really fast for his first version. The goal was to have a last song to finish the album and we wanted to have a contrast between a calm melodic song and the tense and aggressivity of the rest of the album. When we have recorded, we have done a lot of additional guitars to have something denser and more intense. That’s the last part of this song that we can hear on the first track of the album. Which is again a way to show that things are going in an eternal loop.
QUAND LA LUMIERE DISPARAIT (BONUS TRACK) – WHEN THE LIGHT DISAPEAR
This is a Post-Hardcore song and was built really fast too. We were sitting and talking together with some beers and I was playing guitar but not necessary to find something. The first riff of the song came from nowhere and the music where finished maybe 1 hour later after we worked together on. It’s a really dark song with a lot of tension. This song speaks about hard moment we have to live, and that when things begin to be bad, it often goes harder and harder. We have to be strong and to remember that things we are doing can be irreversible.
