Braindead – Pierre Lecarpentier (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Rock music might get branded as having tunnel vision, of being stuck in the past, as being an unwieldy leviathan, ponderous and slow to move with the times but if you listen to the five tracks on this ep release from French multi-instrumentalist Pierre Lecarpentier, you get a feeling for not only where rock music is today but all the places that it has visited to get here. It’s a varied and interesting journey to behold.

The title track kicks things off, a slow-burning sonic journey that takes us from trippy beats and spoken word salvos to squalling and squealing, mutant blues guitar work and By The River has a touch of nostalgic, stadium-ready, heartland rock about it.

For me, the most intriguing song on the ep comes with Everything In The World (Leads You To Me), in parts reminiscent of one of my favoured alt-rock bands, Mazzy Star, never a bad thing.

Braindead is rounded off with Leaving The Birdcage, a dense slice of music that blends the less intense end of the grunge scene with ethereal sonics into an effortless new sound and lastly, Ballad of The White Lady, an accessible call back to classic rock’s past.

Not only do eps like Braindead remind us of past glories and also that the modern artist is free to pick and chose influences and inspirations wherever they find them, they remind us that it is through understanding the past that we can build the future.

Is Pierre Lecarpentier the future of rock music? I don’t see why he could end up being an important part of that story!