To Love Is To Live - Jehnny Beth: Review
is a French musician who was originally known as one half of French indie rock duo John & Jehn alongside Johnny Hostile. In the past decade she gained more interest as the front-woman of all female post-punk band Savages who released two critically acclaimed records in 2013 and 2016.
Review By Lavender:
Not only do I think that I was more excited for this record than most indie music fans but my excitement for the project has only grown and grown over the last 6 months or so. Not only did I think the singles were consistently interesting, but once I got a look at the liner notes of this project and saw that Johnny Hostile, Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails and Romy from The xx were involved in the record. Pair that with Cillian Murphy and Joe Talbot from Idles also being involved in this thing and the roster of creative talent is incredibly impressive. As a result this record is full of interesting ideas and when the songwriting backs it up the songs here are great.
We heard four songs from the album before it was released and they varied in quality as well as how they have aged since we first heard them. The two singles I think are just okay are towards the beginning of the record. Innocence really grabbed my attention at first with its brash powerful percussion as well as Jehnny's confrontational and sexually charged lyrics. Now with some time to rest on the song I still enjoy parts of it but I wish it would have kept up its high energy through more of the track because the vocally isolated portions tend to break up the songs driving momentum. Flower may be the weakest set of the singles despite the fact that I think the song has a good concept at its core. The hook has a great sound palette working for it but I wish it was more exciting or memorable from a songwriting standpoint to properly tie the track together.
This issue of songwriting comes up a few other times on the record as well. We Will Sin Together is an eerie almost pseudo love song that once again features some incredibly interesting sound play. The issue I have with the track is that it seems to wander aimlessly between refrains in a way that feels really meaningless and the repetitive motion of the hook is weak as well. The Rooms is the weakest of the ballad type songs on the record that kicks off with a weird spoken word passage before evolving into a stark piano ballad. The performance here is solid but the songwriting is pretty repetitive and far too simplistic to feel rewarding in this context.
Another pair of singles pop up in the middle of the record and I'm much more fond of them. I'm The Man came out last year and narrowly missed my singles of the year list. I still really enjoy the song here with its dense array of instrumentation circulating around the songs aggressive title refrain. While other tracks kind of get lost in their repetition the driving effect of the Swans meets Nine Inch Nails style songwriting is perfectly executed here. Heroine was the most recent single and I enjoyed it a lot too. It is a really comfortable middle ground between some of the explosive instrumentation that is all over the record and some beautiful ascending vocal passages that back a stand out lead vocal performance from Jehnny. How Could You once again features a fast paced driving instrumental with wild electronic effects laced throughout it. The song features Joe Talbot from Idles in a capacity you hay not have heard him in before. Despite this the song goes over really well and he fits into this more experimental take on hardcore music really well. I once again get some huge Swans vibes from the hook but the pair execute the sound well. French Countryside is the best ballad of the bunch with both a great vocal performance and some on point songwriting that makes the songs crescendos wonderful. The glitzy but measures strings that back the tracks key moments are similarly beautiful and round the song out well.
The record makes use of spoken word style passages a number of time and it pulls the features off well. I Am is the opening song and it comes in two parts, the first half being a kind of haunting spoken word introduction and even though the tone of the lyrics aren't implicitly scary the effect can be haunting. The second half of the track is a prettier almost triumphant moment of personal glory that kind of establishes the records ideology from the beginning. A Place Above is a short spoken word interlude delivered by actor Cillian Murphy whose voice is stoic and perfect for the apocalyptic and self-reflective tone of the words. Paired with an increasingly hostile instrumental the result is excellent. Human is the closing track and at six minutes long is once again uses a few different passages. The first part of the song is an instrumentally complex but still emotional ballad that works its way through a few rises and swells. The spoken word vocals from the opening track return on this one and serve as not only a way to tie the songs themes up nicely at the end but also connect the record as a listening experience and I think its a very solid closer.
To Love Is To Live is a very interesting release from the front-woman of one of modern post-punks most notable acts. Even with some songwriting deficiencies the talent involved in the project shines through alongside Jehnny's uncompromising attitude and engaging lyrics. If you've been a fan of Jehnny's before this will be right up your alley but even for fans of this type of music in general the record definitely has something worthwhile to offer. 6.5/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
This cover is cool. It has a statuesque quality to it that is helped by the lighting and the overall color grading of the piece. There's something about the head that throws me off and it seems like it is disconnected from the body. Like they liked a head from one photo and the body from another and put them together, It could be the lighting that creates the unusual black line of shadow in the center which is rarely seen. The red type does a good job at standing out from the composition and gives it a finished look. 6/10
For more experimental rock check out my review of Jeff Rosenstock's No Dream here
