French post-metal collective Përl returns with Architecture du Vertige, a monumental exploration of emotion, grandeur, and darkness. In this interview, the band unveils the vision, collaborations, and introspection behind their new opus.
1. Architecture
du Vertige is your fourth album and seems to embrace both grandeur and
darkness. What was the initial spark or vision that guided its creation?
Aline (Vocals,
Guitars, Synth): Playing
with grandeur, grandiloquence, openness, and darkness has always been a bit of
a Përl trademark. We like to define ourselves as a band creating chiaroscuro in
our music, and even in our lyrics.
For this
album, I continued to explore this, but this time by exploring the depth of human
emotions: anger, anguish, disillusionment, but also love, Beauty, and the power
of imagination. It’s almost a quest for self through different spaces that embody
these emotions. The contrast of grandeur/intimacy, light/darkness once again
lent itself very well to the overall theme of this album.
2. Your
music often explores the tension between rage and poetic sensitivity. How do
you balance those extremes in your songwriting process? (Bastien -
bassist)
Bastien
(Bass): It actually
came quite naturally. We are writing the songs by jamming, quite often starting
by the intro and constructing the song part after part. So, when we feel that
the next one has to be way more violent, or chiller, we never hesitate to test
it and it quite often works well. It was maybe also easier on that album to
have a natural balance between different parts, as the songs follow more
classical formats with choruses.
3. Aline,
your vocals and lyrics are described as central to Përl’s identity. How do you
translate deeply personal emotions into words that can resonate universally?
Aline: I’m a big fan of poetry; I write it
outside of Përl or my other music projects, simply for the pleasure and power
of writing. I find the use of metaphors and the rhythmic side of poetry allows
it to convey a wide range of visions and emotions. A beautiful metaphor can
redefine the world or a point of view simply by the power of the words, the
words, or the sounds they generate. I’m truly one of those people who believe that
words and language have an inestimable and unparalleled power.
For my
voice, I used to want to stick to metal, but I realized that this approach
alone didn’t allow me to say everything I wanted with the desired intention.
I’m really working on finding my voice, my own, by freeing myself from the
codes that society or genres impose on us.
4. The
album includes guest appearances, such as Sam from Point Mort on “Land’s End”
and Yannick Renaud’s saxophone on “Fjara.” What role did collaborations play in
expanding the album’s atmosphere?
Bastien:
For Yannick saxophone, but also for Chris Kilin for the extra guitar of
Arcipelego, we wrote the full songs then asked them to write their own parts to
bring a bit of their own personality in the songs. Same for Sam, who had the
freedom to write part of the lyrics as well as the melodies. This is very
important, as we do not want these guests just for them to play parts we have
already written. As you said, we want them to expand our universe with their
own contribution!
5. You’ve
covered Sólstafir’s “Fjara” — a bold choice. What does this song mean to you,
and how did you approach reinterpreting it while keeping your own identity
intact?
Thibault
(Drums/Percussions):
I had wanted to do a cover with Përl for a few years, and in 2018 I suggested
covering Solstafir's song Fjara. Finally, in 2024, the idea of doing this cover
came back to the band.
It's a very interesting song because it plays a lot on dynamics. There's a real
finesse in the composition and emotions, with a very melodious chorus. And
luckily, the song's theme fit perfectly with the concept of our album. Fjara is
about grief, and with our album Architecture du vertige dealing with human
emotions as a monument under construction, the song Fjara added a new brick to
the edifice.
We worked on this song by trying to remove some of the characteristics that
were very specific to the original song, such as the ride cymbal on the
introduction. It's immediately recognizable and was a stroke of genius on the
part of former drummer Guðmundur Óli Pálmason, who had a very melodic and
inspired style. But I had to find something else, my own interpretation, while
staying in a similar spirit to respect the identity of the song. We also wanted
to make the chorus much more rock, more in-your-face. We also wanted to adapt
the lyrics into French. As with the track Le jour des corneilles on our
previous album, Les Maîtres du silence, Bastien had the idea of adding an
additional instrument to create different atmospheres. So we called on Yannick
Renaud, who is a saxophonist and plays in the progressive jazz-rock band
Artéca. A band that draws a lot of inspiration from fantasy cultures and manga.
He came to rehearsal, improvised on the saxophone, and it sounded great right
away! It was brilliant! A lot of things
came together naturally on this cover, and we're very proud of it.
6. Produced by Etienne Sarthou and mastered by Magnus Lindberg, the record
benefits from very strong production. How important was the sonic texture in
shaping the emotional impact of the songs?
Bastien: Definitively, the sound is indeed
super important. Moreover, Etienne is really doing a great job as producer. He
does not just record the songs as we wrote them and with the sound we imagined,
but he also proposed different ways to make them sound, as well as new ideas
and arrangements. This album would not sound at all the same with a different
producer!
7. The track
list flows almost like a narrative journey. Did you conceive the album as a
conceptual voyage, and if so, what story or arc do you want listeners to
experience?
Aline: The story isn’t completely defined,
but there is indeed a sort of logical framework to this track list that could
be likened to a form of quest, yes. It’s truly a journey through the different
emotions we encounter when we begin an inner journey. It’s a form of
introspection, but which is embodied by metaphorical places. For example,
Arcipelago is a song speaking of love and sensuality, and I chose to use the
image of the misty archipelago of Scandinavian countries to evoke this.
Naufragée des nuages speaks of the vertigo of disillusionment, when
everything collapses around you and you lose your footing, like in a shipwreck,
except this one has your head in the clouds. Fjara (or beach in Icelandic) is
the place where grief is expressed, the pain that gnaws at us, the need to
reach the other shore.
Overall,
the album speaks of a dizzying fall that crosses many parts of the human soul...
but even in the vertigo, there is always a piece of light that remains, that inhabits
us and saves us.
8. Your
influences range from Alcest to Louis Aragon. How do you merge literary
inspiration with post-metal and indie-pop aesthetics in practice?
Bastien: It’s a two-step process. First the
music, and then Aline takes her time to really find the good concept, the good
story she wants to tell from that. For the mix of music styles, the jamming
process and all our influences helps a lot to make it work. Listening to a lot of
different artists, further away from the metal spheres is primordial!
9. Looking
back on R(a)ve, Luminance and Les Maîtres du silence, how would you describe
Përl's evolution that led to Architecture du Vertige?
Thibault: It's an evolution that involves not
being afraid to break musical codes and fully embracing experimentation. Today,
we fully embrace this mix of post-metal with progressive, black metal and other
metal genres, blending it all with French chanson. At first glance, it may seem
daring and complicated to do, but it's a wonderful challenge. We place a lot of
importance on interpreting emotions in our music. We're now trying to play
around with dynamics a lot more, playing a little less loudly at times, etc.,
while also allowing ourselves to have a little more fun with some groovier
parts.
10. With
the release date approaches, what emotions prevail: excitement, vulnerability,
or perhaps a feeling of vertigo, as your title suggests?
Thibault:
Excitement, yes, but also a little stress, because you never really know how
the album will be received, and there's a lot of work to be done on the side to
promote it.
Aline: I would say a bit of all of that
at once. We’re at a pivotal moment in our career. We’re looking to become more
professional, and we’re really counting on this album to show people the deep
identity of Përl. I personally want to offer people my visions, my way of
seeing the world as an artist, and offer them a sparkle that will remain in their
hearts.
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