It is always interesting to write about bands like La Femme. Flawed bands. Bands with flashes of genius but wildly inconsistent. Bands which were once good but have lost their way for one reason or another. La Femme, the French band from Biarritz, fit into that mould perfectly. They can (could?) write a timeless classic. They can also record misguided albums like Teatro Lucido and Paris-Hawaï. They are many things, and they certainly add an intriguing French twist to the world of music.
Their first album, the perfectly titled Psycho Tropical Berlin (2013), was released three years after the band had been formed by guitarist Sacha Got and keyboard player Marlon Magnée. The title and the cover should tell you what to expect. You will get drunk on this album in no time at all. Psycho Tropical Berlin is an intoxicating mixture of surf music, indie pop, psychedelia, krautrock all imbued with the inescapable yé-yé overtones. It is all quite brilliant, really. They are all over the place but they are also great songwriters. "La Femme" features a terrific melody, sort of shiny French pop, only darker, slightly more sinister. "Sur la planche" was their signature single, the perfect marriage of synthpop and motorik beat. Other favourites include the endlessly tuneful "Saisis la corde" and "La femme ressort" as well as the short and sweet "Si un jour" that is like France Gall and Suicide rolled into one. Psycho Tropical Berlin remains La Femme's best, most consistent album.
That said, Mystère (2016), their second LP, comes very close. With the cover that leaves no room for imagination as well as the running time overkill, the only thing you could accuse them of was excess. The album goes on for over 70 minutes, and while each of these 16 songs has something to offer, a little editing would have been welcome (there is no reason, for instance, why "Vagues" should go on for 13 minutes). But damn it. "Le vide est ton nouveau prénom" is a folk tune for the ages. "Où va le monde" is so infectious it should be banned. "Tatiana" would have you dancing like a wild robot. And "Elle ne t'aime pas" starts like a Pink Floyd epic ("Echoes"?) and sweetly grooves you into complete submission. What a band, one could say.
Paradigmes (2021) is a good album but it also marks the point where things start to fall apart. I mentioned in the previous paragraph that every song on Mystère had something to offer (some more, some less). Well, here the good sits side by side with the bland, and while I enjoy the lush playfulness of the title song, "Cool Colorado" is all style and little substance (even those usually irresistible French 'pa-pa-pa's' sound forced and uninteresting here). And then it goes on like this. "Nouvelle-Orléans" and "Pasadena" are insanely good pop songs but stuff like "Disconnexion" and "Foreigner" just sounds uneventful. It is almost as if they sometimes try to replace substance with sonic kitsch and lyrical seediness. Paradigmes remains a frustrating listen, but there is enough good material here to make it worth your while.
Generally, La Femme took a few years between albums, so it was a bit of a surprise that merely a year after Paradigmes the band released Teatro lucido (2022). As the title attests, this is a Latin-influenced album sung in Spanish. My big profound statement would be something along these lines: the sound is rich but the songs are weak. Teatro lucido is a grotesque mess, and not a very entertaining one at that. A couple of lovely ballads ("Tren de la vida", for example) can not save it, either. Then, one more year later, came an even more perplexing record. Paris-Hawaï (2023) is another revealing title. This time, we are into Hawaiian-flavoured ambient pop that has shreds of glorious past but try as I might I simply can't get too excited about songs like "Les fantômes des femmes". It is pretty, I guess, but the melody is too plain and monotonous to get us anywhere. Paris-Hawaï is languid, lazy, watered down and utterly forgettable.
And now we get Rock Machine (oddly, Wikipedia says this is their fourth album - which is interesting; perhaps Teatro lucido and Paris-Hawaï did not happen, after all). La Femme had songs in the English language in the past, but this time they are serious about it: Rock Machine is sung almost entirely in English. Knowing the French even a little (I have just come back from Lyon, incidentally), you can guess that this idea will not go down well in their country. "Ciao Paris!", too. Still, the language would not matter if the songs were great. And, a few relative successes notwithstanding ("Waiting In The Dark", for instance, is another one of those signature timeless melodies), the band sound tired and uninspired. The remnants of La Femme's identity are still there, but this time the wine seems diluted and does not make you drunk anymore. As a matter of fact, I barely even feel tipsy.
