Love and perseverance scream toward Bibi Club, whose third album, Amaro, succeeds tragedies in the personal lives of core members Adèle Trottier-Rivard and Nicolas Basque. Adèle and Nicolas are raw, unflinching artists, who have responded to the passings of those close to them with a Russian doll of emotions. Amaro is dark (to use a more technical term, it is fucking dark), much darker, in fact, than prior Bibi Club albums, despite the fact that 2024’s Feu de garde was already plentifully dark. It is not the cuddly bunny, “we’re getting through this” shriek of joy that the Québécois duo has utilised it as, but while its gothic synthpop framework and chilling voices yearn not to scrub off the recoil of grief, instead intent on capturing it, the togetherness of music is utilised to remind of the human spirit’s ability to prevail, as a danceable, action-packed ensemble of synths and rhythms prevails alongside.
Adèle and Nicolas are happy enough to address their redemption arc head-on, albeit sporadically. Adèle sings “Where do we go after the death of our child? We hold onto each other” on La bête en colère. She doesn’t sing with assurance, instead appearing as distant from her music as possible, as if hope is on the horizon, but she’s living in a black room. She respects the former portion of the quoted lyric, whilst the essence of perseverance is boosted by a wallop in energy as the song progresses; manic dance drums, extroverted bassy synths. The light at the end of the tunnel is pictured by the final tagline of A Different Light – “I want to love. I want to live”. The tune, potentially Bibi Club’s best to date, is dictated by a classic post-punk guitar melody that drifts and echoes into a dark night sky, much like Adèle’s voice on Infinitè; a breathy vocal with depth naturally spilling out of it like an army of ghosts residing in one woman’s voice.
Darkness consumes Amaro in abundance, from the title track’s gothic warehouse party to The Pine on the Corner’s one-woman graveyard requiem. The industrialism that lurks in the background of George Sand props up dizzying saxophones that flail like demon limbs, and the crushing chords of Le château are forced to cope with a battle emanating behind them: brass that emerges like medieval knights blowing horns on horseback, and seemingly arbitrary percussive blasts, like stray gunfire.
The term “sellout” is perhaps thrown around to the point where it loses all meaning. That said, Bibi Club are anything but; they have responded to their success, their Polaris Prize nomination and growing appeal by doubling down on their darkness, all the while striving for, and gloriously claiming, a sense of love and perseverance.
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