Images du Futur is a foreshadowing title for an album. Firstly, it’s French, which initially seems pretentious until you consider Suuns hail from Montreal, so it’s completely understandable. It’s the phrase itself, translated to “Images of the Future”, that clearly sets up what Suuns are hoping to achieve with this album: a record that sounds ahead of its time.
That is a lofty ambition, and one few, if any, bands diligently strive for. Based on their sound, Suuns are clearly paying attention to the bands that have already forged those evolutionary sounds. And while a direct comparison to other acts can often be a lazy crutch for music reviewers to lean on, the similarities between Images Du Futur and bands like Radiohead and Clinic are unavoidable. IDF sounds like a band striving to be someone else, the problem is the ambition doesn’t match the talent or the output.
Much like the high water marks it was modeled on, namely Radiohead’s Kid A and Hail to the Thief and Clinic’s Walking with Thee, there’s a darkness and a sense of futuristic ruin that runs through this record. That’s as far as the similarities go, though. While their peers paint their apocalyptic pictures with layered, shifting soundscapes, impassioned vocals and thundering crescendos, Suuns seem to avoid those theatrics almost intentionally. Singer Ben Shemie’s vocals never move beyond a mumbled whisper and the guitar sounds are window dressing at best.
Songs like ‘Mirror Mirror’, ‘Holocene City’ and ‘Music Won’t Save You’ are dark and brooding, but they fail to capture the imagination in any way. ‘Music Won’t Save You’ is the closer and a perfect representation of the album as a whole. It starts with a pulsing, arrhythmic beat before Shemie’s vocals begin their impression of Yorke-at-his-softest. Three and a half minutes in, a glistening guitar emerges from the darkness like a diamond and there’s a sense the song is about to explode, fulfilling its destiny and bringing about some sort of orgasmic finality to IDF. A minute later, the guitar, the song and the album are over. Satisfaction is never achieved.
4/10
Review: Nick Mackay