[Criticism] Album "Russian Dolls": LEJ makes the words dance on euphonies

Friday , June 8, 2018, the first album of original tracks of the group LEJ appears in stores. With Russian Dolls, the three young women demonstrate that they are at the zenith of their talent.

From YouTube to Pleyel

Since Summer 2015, their mashup captured on the waterfront of Lacanau, the three linked voices of LEJ (aka Lucie, Elisa and Juliette) resonate in the French-speaking world and beyond. When Pharrell Williams and Time magazine point out their art, the rut unfolds like a red carpet. Barely out of the darkness, they launch their cocktails of songs LEJ style in several dimensions, which will be found on the tracklist of a first opus, simply called En Attendant L'Album. Covers that dazzle their success, rewarding them with a double Platinum Disc, a Victoire de la Musique or a third step on the podium of the most programmed artists in festivals in 2016. Four strings (editor's note, a cello), three harmonized voices , a mallet: the stage is set, and the name LEJ well anchored on the airwaves.

Duality between modern classicism and urban harmony

Almost three years after their album of covers, they open another page with a new opus: Dolls Russes. The latter are objects inside objects, sometimes similar, sometimes dissimilar, which disgorge from hidden faces, like the three singer friends who complement each other in their own way despite their degree of difference. This is also what is modeled in the musicality of the songs. The album highlights the duality between modern classicism and euphonic urbanism, and proves that gaps make alloys. For this album, Lucie, Elisa and Juliette surround themselves with Ozarm, who co-signs their words in the songs. Faithful to the cello and intertwined voices, they deliver twelve poems in music that can be enjoyed without interruption. 

The fade sound unfolds on the eponymous title, Russian Dolls.Very autobiographical, the inseparables sing of their fusional relationship and their solidarity born since childhood: "Three like the musketeers, no news of D'Artagnan, three like the primary colors, on the podium we share gold, bronze, and silver".If they reveal that writing in French is more delicate than manipulating the musical English language, LEJ handles words perfectly, plays with and makes good use of the verb: "I make up my figure of speech". In this album, the three friends approach current humanity by declaiming its real darkness.

They sublimely evoke the domination of a world where touch makes you lose contact (Hey Siri), aims at the proud and egocentric human in duet with Sofiane (Par Ego), or adventures without a future (L'Epoux d'Un Soir) in a darkened atmosphere. On a pizzicato, they worry about migrants in the Mediterranean (La Marée), and sing the dazzling media that echoes their situation in Le Buzz: "If one day I had been told that this virus could be caught, I would have freaked out".

Before the rhythmic Acrobats, La Nuit had freshly been elected first single, a title which, moreover, transports many musical genres in three minutes. From classical, to hip-hop, through vocal harmonies to religious assonances, rap, electro, to the urban, this mix of influences proves to be a sincere success. Behind the beautiful Miss World, and Saine Sainte n'y Touche, LEJ deliciously closes his work with the Epilogue on the melody of a symphony orchestra. Hat!

9/10

Listen: Hey Siri, Miss World, by Ego, The Bridegroom of One Night

With Poupées Russes, LEJ asserts itself by signing one of the best albums of the year and engraves a little more its name, in the compartmentalized French musical universe. Note that the band will be on tour throughout the France from September 29, including the Salle Pleyel on October 26.