JPL (Jean Pierre Louveton) is probably best known to readers of this review as one of the founders of no longer extant French progressive rock act, Nemo, who released their last original album in 2015. He is a very prolific artist, now releasing his twelfth solo album, Post Scriptum on 12th May. You can pre-order this at https://jplouveton.bandcamp.com/album/post-scriptum and one track, Jekyll has been pre-released.
The album lineup is Jean Pierre Louveton: vocals, guitars, bass, virtual instruments, programming; Florent Ville: drums (1, 2, 3); Jean Batiste Itier: drums (4, 5, 6 & 7); Stéphanie Vouillot: piano (2, 4, 5); Elise Bourg: vocals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
Lyrically, the entire work is in the French.
There are seven tracks here, so let’s have a look at them.
We start with Solitaire, which, as veterans of the music scene will remember, was once the only game in town (I brought that single in my pre-prog days, bless). There is a pleasing lightness of touch, with the percussion very prominent at the outset. The guitar work is lovely, a symphonic pastoral delight harking back to later 70’s classic progressive rock, albeit with modern production. Louveton’s voice is expressive, and he harmonises well with Bourg. The three-minute mark sees an expansion into harder territory, a classy guitar solo featuring here. It is a strong start.
Jekyll is embedded below. It is, of course, the literary exposition of the darker side of human nature. To start, musically I hear a lightness of touch, not a casual dystopia before it does take a very dark and doom-laden direction in what I imagine is the transformation passage in the song. Quite operatic and certainly interesting.
À l’évidence je me rends (Obviously I Surrender) is precisely five minutes long, and has clear commercial art rock sensibilities behind it, the vocal harmonies pleasing, a sort of questing after the truth, the final minute heralding an imperious guitar solo. The fretwork on the album is very high quality.
L’homme est un animal sauvage (Man is a Wild Animal), the title of which suggests that the writer has spent a Saturday night in Haverfordwest, affectionately known to locals as “Dodge City”. The author is aware of our deepest flaw as a species, and the violence inherent within us is something we seem incapable of throwing off, and the musical result is a fast-paced delight, the rhythm section particularly strong, the vocals angry and spitting, this split in the middle by a sad passage of harmonising before the core comes back with a vengeance leading into a desperately sad lament. This is a very strong rock song.
Puzzle follows and opens with a dark and mysterious guitar riff before a strong bassline takes up the reins. This is another track which has a lightness of touch to the opening passage, the guitar work descriptive, the vocals almost spoken before the three minute mark brings an expansion of noise and a short enigmatic guitar solo leading into an extended programme led passage which is understated in its power, almost trancey in parts, before the lead guitar takes everything by the scruff of the neck. A very good piece of music.
Les fantômes (The Ghosts) is the penultimate song. The opening is dancing, and I visualise the phantoms racing around a room, preparing for the fun and naughtiness to follow before a much more subdued mid-section – is there anything out there? This is answered by the phantoms returning, swirling around the senses, choral voices not entirely friendly at the close.
Post Scriptum is the title track and closes proceedings. It is epic length at eleven minutes. The translation, I believe, is “written afterwards”, so I take this as a sort of commentary on all that preceded it. I enjoy tremendously the pacy instrumental opening. There is some fine acoustic guitar work blending nicely with the synths, and some jazz-infused drumming from Itier, funk-driven work coming as a (very pleasant) surprise, and a great guitar solo embedded within it giving way then to a classic rock scenario, expansive, loud, very catchy, then veering into progressive metal territory, but never losing its fundamental tunefulness, so we have a veritable smorgasbord of influences and styles in this very strong piece of music.
I have not studied the lyrical content of the album from its native language and have therefore relied upon a sense of what the music itself is trying to convey in writing this review. From the opening to the closing notes, it is extremely well performed and produced. Louveton is a talented musician and songwriter indeed, although that much is self-evident from his longevity and popularity. An album conveying to me the immaturity, savagery, and sheer unpredictability of humanity, I like it.