There are bands that sound underground and there are bands that don’t. Rendez-vous, from the European cultural capital that is Paris, certainly sound like they fear daylight with each of these six skewed songs sounding like the work of vampire serial killers locked forever in the tunnels beneath the city with only a selection of obscure eighties electropop records and a Marilyn Manson t-shirt to get them through the night of the living revisionists. After all, a band like this doesn’t do days. Ever.
A feeling of bleakness thus decorates the music with even the relentless “Euroshima” sounding less like the soundtrack to a drug fuelled dance floor than an enticement to crash a car whilst wearing black. A band like this always wears black as there are no other stylistic options. Ever.
Even at their most playful, and “Ignorance & Cruelty” counts as playful in this shadowy context, this is the kind of band that sounds manic as if their reverb decorated obsessions were a purpose unto themselves. Some might therefore even regard them as cool but you just know that this is a band that does not care about such things. Ever.
Whether you regard this kind of thing as musical nihilism or just the new tune to dance to, it matters not for, despite being creatures of the night, Rendez-vous are actually uplifting. Ever and forever.