Harmonic Permanent Drive is an indus-tinged noise rock project by 4 experienced artists from the independent scene. Waiting [for Joy], their debut album, is a superbly crafted and subtle sonic material that puts the pressure on and generates constant tension.
The album plunges listeners into an intense exploration of sound, with each track evoking a dark and disturbed universe.
From Graveyard onwards, the band transforms the cemetery into a place of inner chaos, where saturated synths create a devastating storm before giving way to devastating tension. This climate of violence and loss of bearings continues on The Fuckin’ Way, a brawling track where the heart-rending choices, like sharp stones, shatter the soul. The noise-ridden refrains mark the inner struggle between desire and disillusionment.
This tortuous path leads to Waiting [for Joy], a track that illustrates, according to Syn-Anton, ‘the vain expectation of an impossible joy’. Bells, like doom-laden sentinels, hammer out the death knell in the background through the bass/guitar combo’. The heavy atmosphere of Waiting [for Joy] continues on Our Living Place, where the fusion of electro textures and Floydian refrains reinforces the impression of a world in decline, a place where lost voices whisper in an omnipresent malaise.
The quest for meaning becomes even more introspective on Monkey in My Brain, where madness gradually sets in, and The World Has Stopped, which depicts an unrecognisable, suffocating world, backed by an Alice Cooper-style guitar. The urgency of the inner explosion is heard in Is There Something to Kill, where the question of liberation is raised like a desperate cry. On My Hand evokes a silent pain where every tear symbolises deep despair. With Holy Glory, this introspection becomes an oppressive wandering, amplified by growing musical tension. Finally, Stuck in a Life concludes the album with a sense of total alienation, frozen in heady dissonant rhythms.
Éric Martin – guitar, lead vocal / project manager
Syn-Anton – machines, vocals / industrial engineering
Aurélien Esquivet – bass / operations research
Étienne Gaillochet – drums, vocals / quality control
Produced by Fuzz-Wire
Recorded at Le ventre de la baleine
Mixed and mastered by Fred Nout
Photographs by MarieXXme
Design nd artwork by Aurélien Esquivet
Released by Juste Une Trace
Release date : 25-04-2025
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