The party line on Pas Chic Chic is that they're pursuing a psychedelic take on "francophone pop" or "French pop"-- terms that appear in the band's biographical materials and press with startling persistence, despite their numbing ambiguity. Exactly which French pop tradition this umbrella term might refer to remains mysterious. Are we talking about the chansons of Jacques Brel, the yé-yé of Francoise Hardy, or what?
Roger Tellier-Craig does seem to offer a flattened version of Brel's lusty, florid phrasing, but I can't speak French well enough to say whether or not Marie-Douce St. Jacques' lyrics reflect the arch naiveté of early-1960s yé-yé. If commentators on the band have been satisfied to recycle this line unquestioningly, and if I'm not rushing to my French-English dictionary to decode the lyrics, I suspect the music's uninviting surface is to blame-- it's hard to work up enough investment in the album to want to figure it out.
It's not that the band isn't doing what it claims to be doing. Drawn from a familiar pool of Montreal musicians (including members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am, and Set Fire to Flames), Pas Chic Chic are in a much better position to understand the traditions in question than I am. The problem is that drawing a line between a traditional idiom and a modern one isn't automatically a rewarding enterprise, although it will earn you perfunctory praise from people afraid of appearing to have missed the point. On Au Contraire, this connection seldom seems to transcend the academic, and the music, despite flashes of interest, is mostly tedious.
The most glaring culprits for this tedium are the shrill Farfisa organ and Mellotron tones that haze the bulk of the arrangements, flattening whatever interest resides in them into an enervating shriek. It also muscles out the percussion, making it sound wimpy (although its sprightly, insistent quality does convey a touch of yé-yé jubilance). Both singers are capable, but neither has any particular charisma; the melodies and arrangements lack direction. Songs like "Vous Comprenez Pourquoi" begin at full-blast, noise around for a bit, and end at full-blast, which makes them feel oddly static despite all of their smoke and thunder.
Pas Chic Chic are best when they leave enough space in their tracks for songs to resolve. The svelte pulse of "Mlle Mille" is a welcome respite, at least until it explodes into an FX orgy; ditto for the bouncy Tropicalia of "Se Mirer Mare" and the reverb-brushed dirge "Aude Aux Ondes". But overall, one leaves the album with a memory of relentless bombast and fanfare, not distinct songs. You could argue that a deep knowledge of various French pop styles is required to enjoy the album, but this seems like a strike against it-- shouldn't music's value speak for itself, in any language or style?
