If you want to pigeonhole North London duo Blue Violet (aka Sam & Sarah Gotley), you’re going to need several pigeonholes and thus defeat the purpose of having a solitary bird-themed box in which to file their music. They supported Echobelly on a 20-date tour last year, but their second album Faux Animaux is certainly not a 21st century rendering of jangly mid-90s indie – it’s far more interesting than that.
First track – and new single – ‘Sweet Success’ is such a deliciously catchy slice of electro-glam, it would be no surprise to discover that it was co-written by Goldfrapp. If you enjoy strict machines and ooh la las, you’re going to be playing ‘Sweet Success’ on repeat like I’ve been doing for the past three days. Great minds and all that.
The Gary Numan synths that kick off ‘Imagine Me’ are soon joined by resounding guitar in the vein of criminally underappreciated late shoegazers Engineers, then comes a chorus that’s almost pure Girls Aloud. Surely, you think, third track ‘Survival’ will complete an early trinity of pulsating pop? But you would be wrong. Blue Violet are as committed to mixing genres as they are creating hooks. ‘Survival’ starts with Richard Hawley/Babybird plucks of the acoustic and morphs into a soaring Dido-like chorus. Talking To You’ is this generation’s ‘Take My Breath Away’ – it’s impossible to listen to it without imagining Tom Cruise in shades and the glorification of war. It would be a cliché to say it’ll take your breath away, but I’ve written it anyway.
By the time you get to ‘The Librarian’, the euphoric stomp of ‘Sweet Success’ will feel like a lifetime ago. The first line “I joined a library because I wanted to read” might momentarily confuse you if you bought Faux Animaux because you wanted to dance. That said, you’ll be taken in by a duet that swells into a Johnny Cash epic. Next track ‘Cold Hearts’ continues the journey into Americana. It could soundtrack a mawkish montage in Stranger Things and you’d just assume it was a mid-80s classic that had inexplicably evaded your ears for your entire existence.
Post-pandemic liberation funk, anyone? “Dance for pleasure / Dance for pain / Dust off your boogie shoes / And dance again!” commands Sarah on lead single ‘Boogie Shoes’, which signals a return to the party mood the album began with. ‘Fire’ is a bass-led strut, through which we learn that “power is a sweet thing,” though Trump and his fellow disaster nationalists don’t need to know – ‘Fire’ is all carnal desire not death drive domination. ‘Teeth Out’ slows the pace even further, though while it will make you tap your leg and sway like grandad enjoying a moment, you’ll be jolted by the statement “Ain’t it all time we drew some blood for the cause.” Still, if it encourages just one person to give blood, you can’t argue with a song that saves a life.
A track called ‘Barefoot On The Seine’ is bound to be a graceful recollection of happy times in the City of Love, but perhaps only Blue Violet would meet this expectation while also lobbing in a chorus that makes PJ Harvey seem as raucous as Aled Jones. One minute, they’re admiring “shades of sapphire lying upon the water” and the next, they’re proclaiming that “you’ve got the right to love, whoever you are!” Vive la révolution de l’amour! Likewise, final track ‘Faux Animaux’ is in two halves – Sarah defiant that she’s “not your fool anymore” then Sam, alone at his piano, gently pleading “find me when I slip away”.
Blue Violet’s next album could be Swiss folk reggae and/or Bublé breakbeat, such is their restless appetite to mix and match. In the meantime, savour the cinematic and electronic joyride that is Faux Animaux – as the kids say, it’ll give you all the feels. Or as the French say, ça te donnera toutes les sensations.
Faux Animaux is out now on Me & My Records via High Head Recordings.
