Dernière Volonté
Devant le miroir

Take my hand. 

The confused chatter of an ordinary evening stretches over the shadows of the soul. The smoke of cigarettes conceals passions, the captivated gazes of lovers, a creeping feeling advances to a marching rhythm and unease is reflected in the gray light scattered along the streets. Don't leave me, stay close before it all ends.

"Prends Ma Main" opens magically the latest work by Dernière Volonté, a project by the Frenchman Geoffroy D., for years active within the gray area known as neofolk. A sense of anticipation runs through the songs, the fog of a big city immersed in an unreal darkness, black and white photographs, and atmospheres hanging like ghosts on the rooftops. The twilight painted by Geoffroy is a chiaroscuro picture where the warlike reminiscences so dear to the grey area marry with emotional melodic embroidery, disorienting orchestral openings, and potential disco hits. No anguished passage, no dark abyss to fall into, just the disorienting ease of listening for an album that belongs to one of the darkest and most complex currents of contemporary light music.

"Au Travers Des Lauries" is a compelling electric ride, pervaded by decadent nostalgia and torn by the dramatic incursions of the strings. A solemn orchestral opening introduces the wild percussion of "Nos Chairs", a clear and pompous reference to Geoffroy's previous works. Deep echoes of timpani seem to emerge from nowhere like ancient cannon blasts, the rhythm becomes ever tighter until it explodes in the apocalyptic finale, a perfect symbiosis between melody and battle percussion. This dark interlude is followed by the metaphysical apotheosis of "L'Eau Pure", perhaps the most evident proof of the extraordinary talent of the French artist.

But it is with "Douce Hirondelle" that Geoffroy displays his most innovative and simultaneously excessive side. A sunny pace characterizes what could easily become a carefree hit on the charts, broadcasted on all radios and in all clubs. A delicate pop ditty with a vague '80s flavor demonstrates the French musician's intent: to close the tragic warlike purposes in the closet and move toward more accessible and less rugged territories. With "Cran D'Arret" there is a temporary return to ancient epic and tense tones, while with "La Nuit Rèvient" the musician's most evident pop tendencies reappear.

The last part of the album alternates delicate introspective moments ("Mes Faiblesses", adorned with the melancholic embroidery of the violin) with tracks that caress electronic new wave ("L'Ombre Des Réverbères", "Verbes Fragiles" and "La Joie Devant La Mort"), culminating in the visionary final episode ("Maitre De Ma Peau").

"Devant Le Miroir" belongs to a suspended world, a glimpse into the soul, to an ordinary evening in the smoky capitals of Europe at the beginning of the 1900s, resting on a boundary, between the darkest gray and the brightest white.