NLF3 are the French combo Fabrice Laureau, their brother Nicolas, and Mitch Pires, seemingly turning in a species of languid and inventive modern art-rock music on O Days (PROHIBITED RECORDS PRO 069); it’s made with bass, synths, guitars, keyboards, and a very “crisp” drum sound. Matter of fact all the instruments have a snap and sheen that is could be seen as a desirable commodity and indicates strong production skills behind the mixing desk.
The actual tunes may not go anywhere in the conventional manner, but this might be due to the piecemeal fashion in which everything was assembled; if I understand correctly, the tunes began as home-recorded demos full of everyday sounds and accidents, some of which passed into the finished product. I’m faintly surprised we’re still getting “lockdown albums” now, but this project began life in 2020 and the way that NLF3 measured their progress was simply by the passing of days on the calendar. Even the tracks were titled ‘Day 1’ onwards, although they got retitled at some stage by the executive committee, so we now have observations such as ‘God’s Lost’ and ‘We Went to Nagoya’ nestling alongside ‘Submarine’.
Jolly and jaunty and even quite melodic, an entertaining listen which might lead listeners to investigate Prohibition, the 1990s “noise rock/emocore band” in which the Laureau brothers formerly played. (19/12/2024)