2 out of 5

Label: Murailles Music

Produced by: Miguel Constantino (recorded by)

This is an interesting band, getting in their own way.

La Terre Tremble!!! have continued to establish themselves as a pretty unique (something)-band, in which different bits and pieces are legoed together in a fashion that’s either total post-rock genius – the kind of moment-by-moment switchups of a group like Panoply Academy, run through the oddball folk scene – or… total art rock, where obtuse lyrics and melody-avoidant structures feel designed instead of composed. Travail seems out to prove its title, as the album leans much more heavily on the second option above, which still generates a ton of interesting moments, just rarely ones that gel into a wholly satisfying song. Meanwhile the top-down sound of Travail is pretty consistent, which sets up a weird duality where song structures are so broken as to make it hard to really get in to any given track, but the acoustic guitar, harmonized vocals, and pitter-patter drums are misleadingly soothing, allowing the music to sink into the background.

Tracks that circle around a main melody win out, and, thankfully, that happens with opener Swamp, and as we get into the closing stretch of the B-side; you get a good vibe from the record as a result of these bookends. And it’s not that the content between is bad, really, just distancing: even Swamp ends pretty abruptly, and then the trio does their best to avoid anything resembling choruses or musical themes, while also not effecting anything really technically impressive, or weird enough to merit a closer listen. The lyric sheet encourages this lack of attention, reading a bit like a smart high schooler’s surrealist poetry – acknowledging I used to write like this too. (I mean, my solution was to not write poetry anymore; not that I improved.)

I think why this affects me more than usual on this outing – because I dig LTT’s general sound of being a mathy Alt-J – is because you can sense the precision of these works, with little buzzes of distortion added at choice moments, and making sure to not take the obvious path of any progression, which doubles down on the vibe of this being a top down experiment, instead of natural growing from the seeds of songs. That structure doesn’t guarantee a problematic album, necessarily, but given the group’s penchant, already, for difficult arrangements, it stacks a learning curve for Travail high, and seemingly purposefully so.