French experimental rockers Radius System explode back into life with the release of their new record ‘Architects of Yesterday’. The Parisian duo, founded ten years ago by Gregory Hoepffner and Axel Dallou, have been conspicuously quiet since their 2008 release ‘Escape/Restart’. The difficulties they faced transferring that record to a live audience saw the pair dissolve the live band altogether and the frustration and anger felt during this period is evident in ‘Architects of Yesterday’, but this is not a bad thing. While Radius System may have been silent the last couple of years, Hoppffner and Dallou have been the complete opposite instead honing their skills and talent with a vast array of side projects including Time to Burn, Painting by Numbers and Template. The result of this favourably impacts on ‘Architects of Yesterday’ and shows a perpetual growth of the two musicians at its centre and gives the impression that these side projects were intrinsically used to ultimately strengthen future Radius System recordings.
The darkness which envelops the album can be instantly felt on the track ‘Curators’, a brooding, atmospheric straight up slice of rock which would not have been out of place alongside the grunge coming out of mid nineties Seattle. ‘Siberian Winter’ finds the band in a more solemn, reflective mood stripping everything back giving the song an exquisite rawness and fragility. The problems of the past are addressed on the track ‘Vacant Before’, a clearly direct reference to the dissolving of the live band and you feel Hoppffner and Dallou are somehow trying to exorcise this demon with the brutality and anger they unleash on their instruments. Highlight of the record comes with the title track, a sweeping, relentless post rockesque landscape painted by two very capable artists.
Overall Radius System have with ‘Architects of Yesterday’ produced a solid, accomplished and intermittently aggressive rock record. The electronic beats and distorted guitar channels of their earlier work have now been put to bed allowing for a more basic and it can be argued a much improved rock feeling to the new album all of which is encompassed and emphasised by a sense of nostalgia and melancholy. Good to see a band learn and grow from difficulties in their past, a refreshing change.
