Album Review: The St. Pierre Snake Invasion - Caprice Enchante

I didn’t hear the debut TSPSI album (A Hundred Years a Day, released in 2015) until quite late in the game with the band only appearing on my radar in early 2018. Overall I thought it was a decent blast and if nothing else it got me excited to hear what the band would deliver next.

What did come next was the song Remystery in December 2018, an absolute slammer of a track with abrasive guitars and vocals, a thundering bass hook and catchy thought-provoking lyrics like “I’ve been sucking all the wrong dicks, trying to keep myself afloat”. It’s fucking great.

Suffice to say, after constant rotation of Remystery and its accompanying video (which I talk about here) I was desperate for more, and quite graciously, the band eventually announced a new album, Caprice Enchante, for a mid-June release.

Before the full album dropped, two further singles became available: Casanovacaine and Braindead.

With Casanovacaine, I was initially put off by the layered, shrieking, scratching guitars in the intro but just as its all about to get too much, the wall of noise collapses into a rolling bass line and introduces a slacker, grunge vocal that just gets hookier and hookier as it goes along. The crushing guitars return constantly throughout, punctuated by the crumpled anthemic lyric of “anything can happen but you know it won’t”. It’s now one of my favourite tracks on the record.

Braindead changes tact with a drum-heavy intro, punctured by a crushing The Who-esque riff and keyboard whine. Rather than going full-on Won't Get Fooled Again on us though, it powers along with thuggish riffs, guitar screeches and anarchic, gruff vocals. The chant of “Braindead, Braindead, Braindead” in the final third will be in your head for days.

So finally the enture album is released in June and upon hitting play on Track 1, The Safety Word Is Oklahoma, you’re met with a complete aural assault. Frontman Damien Sayell spits razor blades in a thundering tornado of crashing drums, grunting bass and white noise guitars…and it doesn’t let up, hammering you with angular riffs and surging waves of aggression. It’s brutal, but rewardingly so.

Next up are Remystery and Braindead, both fucking bangers, then onto Carroll a. Deering, a spasming, reeling brute that sounds like Kurt Cobain descending into hell. Just wait for the second half of the song where the line of “Goodnight Sweetheart” is delivered so violently that Nicholas Lyndhurst would fully shit himself.

Casanovacaine abrasively explodes into life next (man there are a tonne of harsh sounds on this record) before The Idiot’s Guide to Music builds through a buzzing groove of riffs then drops to nothing but drums and more of those delicious grungy, double-tracked vocals. There are a tonne of great moments on this track like the “All they want is Rock Steady” chant, those bending guitar squeals, and some unforgettably brutal screams.

Title track Caprice Enchante opens like a rumbling aircraft that threatens to fully take off. Instead, it malfunctions, becoming some kind of infernal machine going in as many directions as possible. Its a staggering intro that completely takes you by surprise and ultimately drives to a satisfying, catchy ending.

If you thought you’d have heard it all once passing the halfway point, well you’d be wrong. It Gave A Lovely Light is a gospel acapella and something that you might expect to hear on a Fleet Foxes record. It’s short, sweet and bloody lovely, offering some sanctuary from the sonic onslaught.

After that palate cleanser, Omens really brings back the aggression. It’s slow and lumbering yet groovy, like the best kind of doom, but most of all it’s heavy as fuck, with a vocal assist from Jamie Lenman giving the punishing aggression an added layer of brutality. Absolutely hypnotic.

Not All Who Wander Lost immediately raises you from your hypnotised state with an attack reminiscent of early Death From Above 1979: raw and violent. It pounds and smashes and roars into a massive headbang conclusion.

Moving on to the home straight we have Things to Do in Denbigh When You’re Dead, Pierre Brassau, & I Am the Lonely Tourist.

Things to Do… is the longest song on the record and it’s quite happy to take its time. The grunting bass is the best thing on here with a tone that you can never get sick of but the vocals also have a slightly atonal nature, bringing an almost otherworldly aesthetic. The strained Trent Reznor style vocal whine of “things to do in Denbigh when you’re dead” and the roars of “that’s what a real man looks like, this is what a real man looks like” are also proper highlights.

Pierre Brassau is driven by totally chaotic bass and guitars that sound mental but somehow remain catchy AF. It’s also as heavy as anything else on here and the driving riff that dominates the final minute of the song is unstoppable.

After all the chaos, punishment and aggression dealt out on this record, final track, I Am the Lonely Tourist is a rolling, almost dreamlike affair…well at the beginning at least. The drums still hit hard and the bass still slams but the guitars are cleaned up, though after a couple of minutes, the vocals, the fuzz and the grime all come roaring back in for the “one last story still up my sleeve singing ‘I am the Lonely tourist’”. I hope this is how the band also choose to close out their live shows.

So overall, Caprice Enchante is a fantastic listen. Sure it’s harsh and pushy and angry but it’s also wildly inventive and dripping with grunge, doom and punk goodness. The production job has a rusty quality to it (which is my attempt to avoid using the word raw again) that complements the abrasive and layered nature of the instruments. Amongst the staggering volume of noise, the vocal performance still stands out too, jumping between slacker cool, punk irreverence and cave-your-face-in aggression.

I absolutely love this album.

Peace.

Remember, if you like Caprice Enchante enough, go out and buy the record or make sure you catch The St Pierre Snake Invasion live.