Le Jardin des Memoires debuts the punk-inflected alternative dance music of Bleu Nuit, a band that looks back to the early post-punk era of bands like Joy Division and the Cure. Founded by native French-speaking members of the Montreal indie scene, the group adopts a more expansive sound than those inspirations while maintaining a gloomy, basement-club atmosphere on what is an entirely analog recording. The debut was arranged, produced, and mixed by Malajube's Julien Mineau. He and Bleu Nuit's core trio effectively channel the dingier classic post-punk hits with the driving "Trou Noir," which was selected as the album's lead single. The song's repeated stanza warns of a lurking black hole ("Il le sait tres bien que la fin est proche"). Founding members Yan Skene and Nicolas Gaudreault first bonded over common musical tastes, and one such favorite, French musician Julien Gasc, is featured here on "La Sauvagerie." Before drums, pulsing synths, jangling guitar, and Gasc's spoken lyrics enter, it opens with feedback, buzzing, and warped samples of what sounds like old film or television scores (Skene and Gaudreault are both former film students). This type of ambitious texture is explored elsewhere on the record, like on the brief instrumental "Confusion." Its sparser arrangement includes an echoing drum or other struck object, steadily churning synth bass, melodic keyboard, small cymbals, and twinkling bell tones. Later, on "Boule de Cristal," dramatic delay effects evoke cracking thunder on an otherwise steady, dark club tune. With the exception of the album's three instrumentals, which besides "Confusion" also include the opening and closing tracks, the more artful tendencies of Le Jardin des Memoires serve a spooky danceability that will be irresistible to some of the goth rock-inclined. ~ Marcy Donelson

Rovi