How does he do it? With a rhythm of one album a year since its debut in 2023, one might expect The Memory of Snow to give in to certain facilities... However, a quick glance at the length of Obisidian Dust, the third album from Albin Wagener's cold wave / synthpop / dreampop project, shows that the artist hasn't become lazy. Let's get ready for another hour-long plunge into a deeply personal, poetic and melancholic universe: set your vision to “shades of grey”, let your silly smiles die, take shelter from the sun, and if you dance, do it with the softness of despondency.
Of course, it's not just the length of the track that strikes us with Obsidian Dust. As So Many Buildings Close to the Sea envelops us in its spleen, a discreet guitar and an ethereal synth layer give the track its dreamlike touch, contrasting with the urban reality evoked by the title. The Memory of Snow plunges us into the waters of its nostalgia and musical research, both in terms of composition and structure. Obsidian Dust is an album that demands our attention. If its creator respects his listeners enough to offer them something other than a rehash, then the least we can do is give it the ear and time it deserves.
In fact, it's as annoying as it is satisfying to try and fail to put it all in a specific genre, as the author is talking about dreampop and post-punk. The Memory of Snow decompartmentalizes all this rather than trying to mimic genre-specific gimmicks, even though the influences are sometimes glaringly obvious: Depeche Mode and Bowie come to mind, for example, while the deep vocals, both elegant and tortured, evoke an unlikely meeting between Robert Smith and Antimatter's Mick Moss.
This strong personality is also reflected in the lyrics: "there's nothing romantic about pain" sings Wagener on Betrayed, while the guitar hardens the tone... so much for goth clichés, while the lyrics benefit from the same care. We'd expect nothing less from an artist who also launched the magazine Malheurs Actuels, dedicated to ecological inaction (we're reminded of the "buildings too close to the sea" that opened the album...): verve, relevance, a tone all his own. Here's a man who doesn't make music to "look like" his models, but because he has things to say. We're sometimes surprised by Obsidian Dust's snarling direction (the fiery Dark Star, the post-punk nervousness of Ghost City, the poignant crescendo of The Cold Birth of Despair, the bitterness of Blast from the Past), but the listener will find plenty to sweat about in this new density, grit his teeth and let himself be carried away by the "hit" choruses.
Obsidian Dust has a perpetual sense of the "song that works", of the idea that catches, of the melody that sticks to us like a November drizzle. The modesty of a sort of simplicity coupled with an ambition, a desire to propose things without repeating themselves. Prince of Asturias and its backing vocals, the violin intro to Dakota Skye and the saxophone on Please Me all add to the breadth of the music, giving the whole an extra breath of fresh air. Calling its finale Destination, right away, gives it a funereal tinge! With its solemn piano and ethereal conclusion, this final track is a fitting summary of the journey. The Memory of Snow elegantly handles nuances, refreshes itself in the darkness, but seizes on the sun's palest rays to draw new shadows with their cold light.
The whole, bittersweet but also burning with ardor, succeeds in finding the magic formula of a song that works immediately, between false simplicity and research that never goes overboard nor is pompously cerebral. While Obsidian Dust can easily be eaten up in bite-sized chunks, each of its fragments being a model of efficiency, we nevertheless recommend that you let yourself be carried away by these autumnal reveries and immerse yourself fully, as the journey has no shortage of landscapes into which you'll find space for your vague à l'âme.
