Album review: ARDOURS – Anatomy Of A Moment

Frontiers [Release date: 08.07.22]

A merger of two musical forces who once crossed paths, Ardours are Mariangela (Tristania) Demurtas, who sings and writes. And Kris Laurent, who writes, plays all instruments and produces.

Their album, Anatomy Of A Moment, frames up a musical artist’s canvas, and onto it paints the most engaging synchronisation of rock, pulsing electronics and tuneful pop immediacy.

Beginning with ‘Epitaph For A Spark’s skittering beeps and blips of tuneful sci-fi electronica, the music seems rooted in nostalgia. But there’s a transformative quality in Laurent’s arrangements and Demurtas’s emotional vocals, as the duo move the music forward into wider, more symphonic musical realms.

‘Insomniac’s rapid, jagged, two chord intro repeats until the song gets a little more sonically interesting and a little more intense. There’s just the slightest hint of a New Wave edge, like the Pretenders mainlining into a piece of Riz Ortolani music.

Maria’s vocals seems to express the physical sensations she feels when interpreting the lyrics…one moment they are coasting along quite happily … then suddenly her voice is blazing with a throaty roar of emotion.

A sense of romantic upheaval circles many these songs without ever threatening to undermine them. The pastoral, romantic, guitar driven pop of ‘Given’ is stripped down to just the simplest of sounds, with the keys and the drums and the glassy guitars going back and forth, as the melody rises and falls. Lyrically, ‘Cold Revenge’ provides the balance, couching its muffled musical sounds in Gothic darkness.

As is the way of many title tracks, ‘Anatomy Of A Moment’ is different from the rest. It tends toward soundscape rather than song, shuffling synth heavy rhythms underneath Maria’s breathy, dreamy vocals. Quite daring in its own way. Let’s hope it finds an audience. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

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