{"id":31844,"date":"2020-11-01T11:05:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T16:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/records\/a-laube-revenant\/"},"modified":"2020-11-01T11:07:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T16:07:03","slug":"a-laube-revenant","status":"publish","type":"records","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/records\/a-laube-revenant\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c0 l\u2019aube revenant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A goldsmith of song, Francis Cabrel has been sculpting the soundtrack of much of the French-speaking world for 40 years now. With wooden clogs, rolled mustache, big breezy sleeves, and Southern accent, he already embodied the patchoulied troubadour of yesteryear, rampant amid the urban forests of radio antennas. We remember his many classics such as \u201cPetite Marie\u201d, \u201cLes Murs de poussi\u00e8re\u201d, and above all, \u201cJe l\u2019aime \u00e0 mourir\u201d, all released in the late 1970s. Then, with this success, he was soon circumscribed by an industry that polished and updated both his physical and musical aesthetics (Sarbacane<\/em>). But all with elegance, as Brel would say. And Cabrel became over time one of the icons of French entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this new album, composed of 13 tracks like the previous one, Cabrel somehow reconnects with the troubadour he used to be while preserving, here and there, pronounced concessions to the FM waves. One thinks here of the very \u201980-\u201990s choruses, rather reminiscent of Leonard Cohen (\u201cFort Alamour\u201d, \u201cPeuple des fontaines\u201d). But, little by little, the listener\u2019s smirk is accompanied by a snap of fingers that keeps the beat, as with the hit \u201cTe ressembler\u201d, a lively letter to his father, a hard-working immigrant to whom he never knew how to say \u201cI love you\u201d. Or the very beautiful \u201cRockstars du Moyen-\u00c2ge\u201d, on which Cabrel openly doffs his cap to his troubadour predecessors and goes with a chorus in Occitan, their preferred language. Or yet another missive, a declaration of friendship, addressed to Dutronc, on \u201cChanson pour Jacques\u201d. If certain songs could be quickly forgotten, like his eco-manifesto \u201cJusqu\u2019aux p\u00f4les\u201d or the aforementioned ode to Dutronc, others could well slip into our daily lives, like \u201cLes bougies fondues\u201d or the catchy \u201cJ\u2019\u00e9coutais Sweet Baby Jane\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his voice wrapped in velvet strings, brightened up with trumpet, powdered with soul and blues, Cabrel offers, overall, a damn fine album. But what\u2019s most striking is that this fan of Dylan and Barbara, whom he also evokes, remains ever more touching when he becomes folky and nostalgic again, as in the catchy and lucidly poetic \u201cLes Bougies fondues\u201d, where he laments a veiled girl\u2019s loss of childhood. Some flowers have thorns, after all..<\/p>\n\n\n\n