November 19, 2019

L’Épée Diabolique

8.5 / 10 Very cool, retro toned, international super group making psychedelic pop songs!

L’Épée Diabolique is a rocking album with spaced out guitars male female vocals pop music with Marie Limiñana of The Limiñanas and Emmanuelle Seigner on lead vocal. The album excellent with impossibly skilled songwriters and performers in the underground rock scene including Anton Newcombe all coming together to make a unique and entertaining album.

L’Épée Diabolique came out in June 9th 2019 on A Records Ltd. Anton Newcombe‘s label and Because Music.

L’Épée is underground psychedelic pop music with a rock feel blended with solid song structures and beautifully balanced instrumental arrangements which seem to grow and evolve as the songs play out. The tones are retro, french vintage tones with a variety of well played and arranged instruments. The songs build and change, sometimes guitars drenched in reverb raw and exposed with super cool attitude take the front melody while at other times layers of arranged instruments create an textured and beautiful sound.

The first single from the album was “Dreams” a upbeat French pop song with chiming, guitars, with hot tremolo guitar lead lines, upbeat percussion including tambourine. Wonderful song very compelling tones leaving me wanting more.

L’Épée is a new band with Emmanuelle Seigner, a French actress, musician who notably decided to marry Roman Polanski. Anton Newcombe is the leader of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, a band which carried the psychedelic garage indie rock sound before it was a thing in San Francisco in the 1990s. Anton Newcombe is a unsung legend in his own right and has navigated the music industry his own way. Brain Jonestown Massacre has some incredible hits including “Anemone”. Lionel Limiñana and Marie Limiñana of The Limiñanas. The Limiñanas are an incredible French psych pop band with sexy voice overs and retro guitar.

The Limiñana‘s bring their own sound and songwriting to the table and its amazing to hear how well it blends with Anton Newcombe‘s style. The music feels very comfortable as if these bands had been playing together for many years. The sounds on the album touch on every decade especially the current age. There is plenty of old school Brain Jonestown Massacre style riffage and guitar leads on the album which are wonderful to hear. That linked with Lionel Limiñana‘s distinctive tone and style on the guitar is brilliant.

The multi-lingual vocals switch between French and English with the beautiful soft and characteristic feminine voices bringing more uplifting sounds and soft loving soothing vocal performances.

The songs do become psychedelic adding in world instrumentation and trippy phasing keyboards and echoing guitars. This high weirdness can be heard on “Grande” and throughout the album in the layered instrumentation.