ALBUM REVIEW: Autophagie – Kill The Thrill
Autophagie, translated from French to English, is the self-consumption of cells, but it seems that KILL THE THRILL speak of it in a much more grim way, a more widespread sense. With their new work during Autophagie the French trio are reintroducing themselves and new ideas for the first time since 2005; almost two decades span the gap, and that gap has seen the world undergo changes that were probably unimaginable for most people in 2005. Blending in darkwave, industrial-sized ambience and cold 90s nostalgia, KILL THE THRILL attempt to make an album that can be interpreted however a listener pleases, not reliant on whether they understand French or not.
The hour-long listen features track lengths that are bold and confident in what they can do within stretched out allotments, some tracks even pushing the ten-minute mark and none that sit beneath four minutes — Autophagie takes commitment to make your way through it. Ten-minute stretches like Le Dernier Train and Capitan sit on a cliff of what sounds like bitter sentimentality; they’re fairly mid-paced tracks that give you time to sit with the melancholy that stirs inside you whilst the tracks invoke sad little epiphanies about your life. It’s not the most appealing experience if you’re purposely trying to avoid thinking, which a lot of us are lately, but to accept the bitter pill is to let yourself feel all of the pain, shame, silver linings, tears you’ve cried, laughs you’ve had. Equally, not many songs can make you feel like you’ve just watched The Breakfast Club quite like Capitan does, it encapsulates the triumphant middle finger found at the very end of the film.
A track like Clusterheadache can wash all those feelings away though, throwing emotional dissonance toward you like a train hurtling at full speed, its turmoil wrapped up into a five-minute runtime. From glistening guitars and drums that disturb them ever so slightly, Clusterheadache is a track with nuanced ambience, and a touch of edge from frontman Nicolas Dick’s undressed vocals that walk straight down the middle.
It’s hard to say where KILL THE THRILL and their first proper work in almost two decades sits within the age of Gen Z, of perpetual consumption and media that lends itself to the sake of instant gratification. Autophagie works toward the exact opposite of how we consume now, it’s loyal to times where people had more patience than they do now and invests time and development into a longer listen. Ultimately where the band succeed in making many gorgeous soundscapes that evolve over time and can at points offer mouth-watering satisfaction and songs that manage to correspond with a wider sense of emotion, they all start and finish at the same point of slow start, semi rewarding finish. It could be a much more rewarding and effective listen if parts were more heavily edited to benefit their reintroduction into releasing music.
Rating: 6/10
Autophagie is set for release on January 26th via Season Of Mist.
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