THE LAST INTERNATIONALE: Soul On Fire (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

In these troubled times, music can sometimes be a refuge for the expression of society's frustrations and sorrows. The subjects are numerous: climate, migrants, discrimination, the ever-increasing gap between rich and poor? This was the case in the 60s, 70s and 80s when rock festivals multiplied to espouse humanitarian causes.

And since then, has rock become the prerogative of self-centred bourgeoisie forgetting the essence of the genre by definition, that of embodying an act of rebellion and a subversive style? Not quite, as long as we dig a little deeper than what the media serve us to find a semblance of authenticity. While many have given in to marketing, others have managed to keep or create that spark that could rekindle the fuse of the societal revolution. The Last Internationale is one of those groups that still have at heart to be the voice of the oppressed.

The duo, whose very name is a provocation in the land of capitalism, is releasing a new album produced by Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave...). "Soul On Fire" is a twelve tracks album against the consumerist society which accentuates inequalities, twelve lethal injections in the pure rock tradition to denounce the current financial economy. Coming from New York, Delila and Edgey are the worthy heirs of Joan Baez, Janis Joplin or Woody Guthrie and give their music a social dimension. Not totally punk, not totally hard, not totally folk, The Last Internationale is almost everything at once - especially rock, and is distinguished by a nuanced musical direction more than frontal. The listener will find the fatness of the saturated guitar in 'Hard Times' with an unstoppable chorus proclaimed by the singer inhabited by her protest priesthood.

The first nuances are embodied in 'Try Me' with an almost funky and terribly groovy structure where Paz is sometimes charming, sometimes teasing and sometimes brittle, but also in 'Tempest Blues' with ZZTop accents in the southern rock riffs. But the track that brings even more relief is 'Soul On Fire', a kind of bluesy ballad where Delila Paz's vocals are full-bodied with a hoarse and concerned voice that doesn't overdo it, but gives you the shivers. Finally, there is the bravura track, the one that drives the nail in with its duration and totally unbridled structure with monumental musical parts where Edgey expresses all her talent with her Jimmy Page style ardour, freewheeling.

Firmly anchored in its hard, difficult, divided era, The Last Internationale becomes the standard-bearer of a music that we thought was over, the one that is embodied in a political dimension, to allow the expression of a word too often stifled and extinguished and that only asks to expose its frustrations. - Official website

THE LAST INTERNATIONALE

SOUL ON FIRE

AUTRE LABEL

ROCK