Fresh off the release of their poignant new EP “Des Marques Sur Nos Mains” , Parisian emotional post hardcore band TENACE are back to our pages with their special, first-hand track by track commentary below. Check it out and be sure to see their recent live session video HERE.
“Des Marques Sur Nos Mains” is out now via Itawak Records, Sleepy Dog Records, Nuisances Records, Yoyodynerecords, • smart and confused •, Jean Scene Creamers, Les disques Rabat-joie, Les Laboratoires de sons, Cloudsurf Records, Cœur sur toi, Callous Records, and Missed Out Records.
Words by TENACE’s singer and bass player Mateo Riou:
1 – Les Souffles Et Nos Chemins:
One of my friend writes poetry for a long time now. He actually has a lot of little books he keeps, books that will probably never be published. He decided to live as an outsider, without a smartphone, without any credit card. He often goes for some hiking adventures around the globe by himself. He refuses to live as the world wants us to live. We then went to China and Taïwan to study chinese medicine. He translated many books that are going to be published in french and english. We grew up together and we are still very close, even though we see each other only a couple of times a year. For me he is like a wretched poet, the modern version of Baudelaire or Rimbaud (french writers). One day, he brought me a poem he wrote as an ode to our friendship. I wanted to write music with the band around his words. Les Souffles Et Nos Chemins was born.
2 – Crépuscule:
I really like this track and I feel emotionally attached to it. It is a bit cliché but I talk about getting old, feeling the age and the weight of time starting to affect our body. Loosing a sense of recklessness when facing danger and wanting to stay young forever.
3 – Liens (feat. Clément – Personal War):
We wanted to invite our friend Clément from the band Personal War. We thought about it during the first lockdown. He came with some lyrics about being locked up. So we started to work around the idea of feeling imprisoned and loosing the relationship with had with others, relationships that we probably already had lost before Covid actually…
4 – Le Sang:
I wrote this text when I was touring a lot as a tour manager. I had struggles being / feeling present anywhere. I felt like I wasn’t there for the band I was working with and I wasn’t there either for my family and friends I wasn’t spending time with.
It inspired me the story of a guy who only thinks about work, money and glory. He is a victim of capitalism. Le Sang is kind of our take on a track from a well known french band Noir Désir – L’homme préssé.
5 – Dernier Soupir:
I have already written a lot about my deceased grandmothers who suffered from Alzheimer and my granddad who is still here. I imagined what he could have said to his wife just before she would pass away.
Dernier Soupir is about those little words and things we do to help our loved ones to leave this world.
6 – Le Cap:
This track is a bit more “save the earth” oriented. From a writing perspective, it is different from the other tracks. I chose to write on prose rather than making the words rime or sounding good.
Le Cap refers to the change of direction our society refuses to take and the ecological consequences we are already facing.
After all, maybe the end of humankind is a good thing, like a boat disappearing at the bottom of the ocean. That way there would be no trace of us on the planet.
7 – Sombre Tableau (feat. Fabien – Eux!):
I met Fabien at work. As a venue manager he welcomed me at a show for a band I was in charge with. We got along pretty well and realised that we shared the same passion for a specific music genre. I really enjoyed listening to his band: Eux!
So I thought we had to invite him to take part of our EP. We wanted to talk about the dark side of humankind and the people who are supposed to lead us with rectitude. In the end, they are the same people who make us hate each other and lead us to atrocities.
8 – Omen Nocturni:
This track was a challenging one since we did not all agree on how to produce it at first. We really wanted to experiment on it, going out of our confort zone by singing all together in harmony (which
would sound like Corsica choirs, a typical music genre from an island located South of France). We almost abandoned the idea but we finally did it!
I think I the lyrics are the last ones I wrote. I got the inspiration from a book I was reading from Fred Vargas, a french author. She talks about refusing the ideas that come during the evening, trying not to take any decision. She invited the reader to wait until the true night, after 1am where silence and dreams help us to make the right choices. So I used the analogy with my own experiences with parisian life where we party and end up doing fucked up stuff. We can actually keep the control and not fuck it up by resisting the intoxications.
