by Heather Williams (@heatermeow)
En Attendant Ana's Juillet is another absolute gem of an album released by the mighty Trouble in Mind Records. This is the second full length from this fantastic fuzz pop band from Paris, France. It is an album of triumphant swells, hooks, and horns marked with lyrics urging one to figure out that thing you are trying to figure out and move forward.
The songs of Juillet all stand on their own but it is also an album to listen to from start to finish because there is a story here with several movements. “In / Out” drops right on you with urgent guitar rallies and dancing bass lines. “Flesh Or Blood” makes me want to be swaying outside in the sun watching this band tear through these songs. Many of the songs on this album have a question at the core that feeds the overall album arc of figuring out how to accept and move through life’s fluxes. Frontperson Margaux Bouchaudon asks, “So what’s the point of being so sad?” in “Somewhere and Somehow” and it is a good question. What is the point?
The album takes a more somber turn with the partner songs “Enter My Body (Lilith)” and “Words”. The creeping guitar lines of “Enter My Body (Lilith)” fading into the insistent vocals of “they’re so heavy” in “Words” takes us to a place of struggle, but we are only here for this moment. “When It Burns” starts off instrumental and turns into a thoughtful reprise of earlier songs in the album, bringing us from the struggle to the final redemption song of the album, “The Light That Slept Inside.” The title suggests we all have a strength, a light inside, to find and draw upon, even if it doesn’t seem so in the moment.