5 out of 5

Label: Kythibong

Produced by: Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy (recorded and mixed by)

They math, they prog, they bleep, they squiggle, they rock. Papaye kicked off things in the instrumental math rock world as strong as any of their many peers, managing to do it all – all the things mentioned – and maintain their own identity, and be really technically impressive but also somehow not showy about it. It’s quite brilliant. And as things continued on, the group only honed that approach, arriving six years later at Para Bailar, their last release and an ultimate statement.

With the longest track just a couple seconds longer than three minutes, and most hitting the two-ish minute mark, this is truly an All Killer, No Filler run of eight songs, and yet still sticking to that balance of kicking ass but not being especially over-the-top, well represented by the album artwork – distilling human bodies in movement down to silhouettes and directive blobs of color. Following that, Para Bailar’s songs all approach the material with intent, even when they dip into open-ended noodling, like ‘Dans la boite à jazz’s fittingly jazz-adjacent guitar wanderings and drum fills, and the way most songs start from a “simple” premise – an NES-like hook – and then explode it in fun but surprising ways, often getting heavier as things go on.

That last reference is probably a starting point for RIYLs, with Papaye sounding like a more angular The Advantage, but once things kick off, we shred most normal instrumental references (most Don Cabness is gone, for example) and lean into a punky forward momentum.

Para Bailar is one of the most fun releases in this scene, and an excellent final feather in the cap of this short-lived band.