2001 - France
Art Rock, Progressive Rock, Cabaret
No more than the story of a dog, between a Grimm tale and a Bukowski novel. Right off, the atmosphere is set by Arnaud Mazurel’s voice, sharp and sarcastic. If Jack the Ripper are later going to take their time with longer instrumentals, this first album is more straightforward, without losing its moving moments in between the mad art rock layers. On the opening song, the miserable dog decides to “go back to my forest then to my quest, again / Up north, then to the west, down to the south…” like an infinite and deadpan circle of endless wanders. At the end, when you take off the dirt and the violence, there’s only melancholy left, and that’s exactly how a Jack the Ripper album sounds when they turn the lights off.
That’s only during the second song that we feel like we’re propelled into the album’s artwork. Indistinct chatter, an evening party for a prayer in a tango. Jack the Ripper embrace their baroque aesthetic with a cabaret style, lead by the violin, to explore the thoughts of a man whining on his life. “I guess I deserve what I get / I’m not what You call a good man / I’m only good when I complain […] O Lord gimme wine I said / But He sent me His blood.”
Prayer in a Tango probably is the most “Jack the Ripper” song off the album. The story of a despicable character with a God complex during a very danceable and bitter song. Nihilistic ? It’s difficult not to have this word in mind when thinking about the French band. Just like Nick Cave used to do with his bloody characters Henry Lee, Stagger Lee, O’Malley and other murderers, Jack the Ripper inhabit an infect mythology where sin is the rule within a society of little devils, demiurge bastards and creepy melancholics.
And after the sublime and jaunty danse macabre Haunted, there’s a song exclusive to the CD called Mescaline. I don’t have any clue why this song isn’t on streaming services, and that’s a pity because Mescaline continues to develop the band’s gloomy universe, even though it’s not one of the strongest song in here… especially compared to the next song, In a Bar with Billy Kunt, a completely instrumental track, all about atmosphere, with a lead electric guitar moving with a great sensuality alongside with a melodic trumpet.
And as we’re getting closer to the tale’s end, we embark one three very different yet cohesive songs, the first one, Son of, sung from the perspective of Adolf Hitler’s son, then The Assassin, where a murderer’s words are meshed with the sound of a woman moaning, and finally Liberation where Mazurel’s poetry gets twisted by love and lust, losing is mind in a cruel sexual imagery. With quotations from Oscar Wilde and Edward Thomas, the violin ends the ride with a dramatic tone, turning the lights off, so all we have in the end is nothing but a profound melancholy while we contemplate this musical painting of evils.
That’s only during the second song that we feel like we’re propelled into the album’s artwork. Indistinct chatter, an evening party for a prayer in a tango. Jack the Ripper embrace their baroque aesthetic with a cabaret style, lead by the violin, to explore the thoughts of a man whining on his life. “I guess I deserve what I get / I’m not what You call a good man / I’m only good when I complain […] O Lord gimme wine I said / But He sent me His blood.”
Prayer in a Tango probably is the most “Jack the Ripper” song off the album. The story of a despicable character with a God complex during a very danceable and bitter song. Nihilistic ? It’s difficult not to have this word in mind when thinking about the French band. Just like Nick Cave used to do with his bloody characters Henry Lee, Stagger Lee, O’Malley and other murderers, Jack the Ripper inhabit an infect mythology where sin is the rule within a society of little devils, demiurge bastards and creepy melancholics.
And after the sublime and jaunty danse macabre Haunted, there’s a song exclusive to the CD called Mescaline. I don’t have any clue why this song isn’t on streaming services, and that’s a pity because Mescaline continues to develop the band’s gloomy universe, even though it’s not one of the strongest song in here… especially compared to the next song, In a Bar with Billy Kunt, a completely instrumental track, all about atmosphere, with a lead electric guitar moving with a great sensuality alongside with a melodic trumpet.
And as we’re getting closer to the tale’s end, we embark one three very different yet cohesive songs, the first one, Son of, sung from the perspective of Adolf Hitler’s son, then The Assassin, where a murderer’s words are meshed with the sound of a woman moaning, and finally Liberation where Mazurel’s poetry gets twisted by love and lust, losing is mind in a cruel sexual imagery. With quotations from Oscar Wilde and Edward Thomas, the violin ends the ride with a dramatic tone, turning the lights off, so all we have in the end is nothing but a profound melancholy while we contemplate this musical painting of evils.