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We had left Rendez Vous in January 2020 after a tour of over 120 dates around the world and a sold out show at La Cigale in Paris. We find RDV again in May 2024 with “Downcast,” their new album, and the first observation that arises is that the cursor has shifted - towards extremes. The highly effective post-punk anthems have given way to tracks of barely contained rage (“Sheer,” “Dye and Retry”); simultaneously, RDV significantly slows down the tempo on a good portion of their new songs and establishes a new atmosphere that we hadn’t seen from them before.
We discover a band just as capable of delving into the most relentless harshness as of producing pieces of great melancholic beauty (“Nothing,” “Smoke ‘Em Heads”), and therein lies the strength of this album. RDV has chosen to go against the trajectory one might have expected from them: 50% of (very) enraged tracks, 50% heart-wrenching pieces - the mid-tempo tracks often flirt with ballads and heartfelt cries. We didn’t know RDV was capable of moving us to this extent (“The House Has Burned Down”), and the discovery is a happy one.
The other major change to note in RDV’s sound is a step forward in the reference decade: abandoning its synthetic elements, the group releases a record that bears the presence of Frank Black, the Smashing Pumpkins, shoegaze, and grunge - one could even scratch the surface to the Deftones. However, don’t see this as any hint of pastiche: “Downcast” is a pure product of its time, laying down markers for the years to come. Even though guitars have replaced synthesizers, the record is punctuated with glitches and digital distortions, and the group surrounds itself with nightmarish visuals, which aesthetically extend the emotional disruption conveyed by its music. “Downcast” is an exercise in transcribing the violence of the world in the midst of the 2020s, modern in its hybrid nature, like a life-and-death struggle between human and machine - two enemy brothers seeking to embrace each other as much as to suffocate one another.”