She blended of Caribbean sounds, jazzy percussion and, to some degree, disco grooves (particularly during the upbeat chorus). On “Menteur” (translation: “Liar”) she combined several things that shouldn’t work together but somehow they do. On “Paris j’ai pris perpète,” she meshed organic strings with flourishes of electro, crafting one of the best songs of her career. Here, she does just about every style of music under the sun. I believe she was trying to say that she’s moving on, shedding her past, starting anew. On Mue, which is French for moult, which is what animals do when they shed feathers or skin, etc. On her last album, Franky Knight, she paid tribute to her late husband and it was truly beautiful. Later on, Emilie opened up her voice and revealed that she could hit very impressive high notes on The Big Machine. Then she scored La Marche de l’Empereur – the French version of The March of the Penquins, which had different (and superior) music than the version of the film that was released Stateside. On her first album, self-titled, she did electro-pop exquisitely, singing in a very hushed manner that was, well, adorable. If you liked either of Warrior’s previous bands, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, you’re sure to bow at the alter of Tryptykon.įrench singer/songwriter/producer Emilie Simon has done many things throughout her career, which goes back about a decade now. Besides, there are songs here, such as “Breathing,” that sound an awful lot like thrash to my ears. Even if you don’t normally like black metal, or even death metal, you’d probably find this album appealing, being that Warrior doesn’t exactly screech or grunt his vocals he delivers clean vocals, just of the aggressive variety. Tom Gabriel Warrior’s latest band released one of the year’s best metal albums of any variety, period. Granted, nobody can entirely take Martina Topley-Bird’s place, but each singer here brings her own charm to the record and the juxtaposition of Tricky’s vocals and the women’s vocals is priceless. He even spiced up the album with lots of female vocals. Well, suffice to say it was one trippy trip and it’s sure to please any of his early fans who were disappointed with his last few albums. But he made the decision to go back to his roots and deliver a true trip-hop album with Adrian Thawes (his real name). Some were even more alternative than trip-hop.
Tricky has never made a bad album, but his last several albums tended to be less trippy than his iconic records Maxinquaye and Pre-Millennium Tension. They also get kudos for fully transforming Lana Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans” and Air’s “Sexy Boy” into arena-ready pop rockers with an air of punk. Songs like “Ooh La La” and “Comment Faire” find them at the top of their game. Plus, these are some of the most well-produced, energetic tunes this year. And you shouldn’t let the French thing keep you away because most of these songs are in English. Now a trio, the French group Plastiscines released one of the year’s finest pop rock albums from any country.