Elyose - "Ipso Facto" [2015]

Artist: Elyose

Title: Ipso Facto

Genre: Gothic Metal, Electro Metal

Country: France

Release date: 2015

Track List:

1. Fragrances
2. Femme De Verre
3. De Guerre Lasse
4. L'Animal-aimé
5. Plus qu'Humain (feat. Florent Jannier)
6. Chronocide
7. Mon Charme
8. Rédemption
9. Pour Un Écu
10. Droit Dans Les Yeux
11. Contretemps

As you know, I usually don't listen to Francophone music that much (with some notable exceptions like Amesoeurs or Paris Violence), but Elyose managed to pleasantly surprise me, even if I can't call this album a masterpiece. I think this review describes it quite well:

"When it comes to classifications as "modern electro metal" or "electro gothic metal" and similar descriptions, I'm always a bit suspicious, and that's the thing with this French outfit named Elyose. I must admit that I wasn't familiar with this name before the release of this album, even though they were formed in 2009 and since then released one EP and one album. Ipso Facto is their sophomore full-lenght and if we believe to their words, it's heavier and more focused on energy than were their previous releases. It's interesting to see that the main member and composer here is their attractive vocalist Justine Daaé, and not only that she's good looking, the girl is also trained classical vocalist and she proves that on every single track up here. Well, like in many cases before, even though the quality of music on Ipso Facto is above average, it somehow doesn't have enough of that little something to reach a bit higher and most of the time it just sounds too mellow. Let me explain... >>>"

Musically, it falls in the broad category of "female-fronted metal" with a lot of electronics, but I wouldn't call it "industrial metal" as some reviewers did. However, some of their tracks are fairly close to it, such as "Plus Qu'Human", which is undoubtedly the best piece off this album:

It features dual male/female vocals of the "beauty vs. the beast" style (featuring Florent Jannier of Arkan), which the reviewer above didn't like, but for me it sounds pretty good. The rest of "Ipso Facto" isn't as memorable, yet it shows a lot of professionalism and devoution, and represents Elyose as one of the most interesting lesser-known female fronted metal bands to appear in the last decade. Yeah, there were quite a lot of them, but Elyose really stand out from the rest, not in the least due to the interesting keyboard work which no doubt would appeal to the fans of industrial/"futuristic" kind of metal. Singing in French adds their music a lot of charm too, and hopefully it wouldn't prevent them for being better known outside their hone country.