"With their third album, the Belgian trio LEM comes back to Earth, trading the cosmic verticality of their beginnings for an exploration of the Earth, its streets, its beaches, its forests, its hells. Observing those who inhabit them, singing about nature – literally – dead and the all-too-human vanities, like three visitors from space taking a final look back, they greet the ocean, say goodbye to the Earth, to its bitter gods, to day and night “The. end of the night, she will not come” (Humain ceci, track 7)

Memento mori, cruel testament, Vanitas, released on the very young Brussels label Slouch Hat, contains 11 sound bombs aimed at the last men, like so many revelations to dance to while the house burns (Devant toi la route crache son sang / Devines-tu au loin l’impasse, Vanitas ?, Vanitas, track 5). Jumping drum machines, bouncing bass, spatial synthesizers and ethereal choirs nevertheless animate catchy melodies, daughters of Elli & Jacno, Polyphonic Size, Telex or Suicide. Nicolas Ekla sings them in a high voice, with a subtle mannerism, evoking here Dominique A (Je ne sais plus), there Christophe (Bombe Sonore), alternating spoken-sung and feverishness.

Since the launch of his lunar module in 2003 with Soon the cosmos, the project of the Belgian singer and musician (Les Brochettes, Ming) has moved from solitary electronic minimalism to a much more physical, animated pop, at the same time as Wilf Plum joined him. (Dog Faced Hermans, Marcel Duchamp Almighty Orchestra) on bass, then Flo Cha (Refurinn Kitsune) on backing vocals and keyboards. Since LEM's second album (Soulstreet, in 2009), the trio has deployed its sense of rhythm and harmonies in energetic concerts, carrying its spectators into frenetic dances.

Like Kraftwerk models turned shamans, the three members of LEM combine dub or postpunk grooves and the sharpest synthetic sounds to animate the black poetry of Nicolas Ekla. Both metaphorical (« Chaque jour j’allumerai une cigarette noire. Chaque jour je mangerai mon pain noir / Chaque jour  je sortirai mon étendard noir », Noir, track 1) and demands (« On en trouve partout croyez pas / Que c’est un privilège de riche / Que d’être dieux dans son chez soi / Deux couilles et une niche »”, Les Dieux, track 11), the texts of his albums regularly summon glorious tutelary figures like Fassbinder, Rimbaud or Maiakovski.

For Vanitas, it is the shadow of Maldoror, the mysterious, nihilistic and misanthropic character invented by Isidore Ducasse, who hovers over Noir or Vieil Océan. His «Je te salue vieil Océan» is at the heart of this end-of-times album, more sad than bitter, fueled as much by anger as by love. This is how everyone will be able to hear it addressed to themselves: « Que personne ne sorte / Le coupable est de la fête » (Pop is dead, track 4). But rest assured, if pop is dead, Vanitas is not its swan song: LEM is already recording new songs."