Laura Kerry
By some accounts, the Lyon, France-based band Decibelles met in 2014. By others, it was 2015 or 2016, but in any case, the group began a handful of years ago, when its founding members were teenagers. Now in their mid-to-late twenties and several albums into making music together, the experience is evident. In their new album, Tight, the trio—now comprised of Sabrina Duval, Fanny Bouland, and newest member Lamson Nguyen—Decibelles shows off their style of pop and punk with a dynamism and bravado that speaks to a sense of ease.
From the first feedback-heavy notes on the LP, Decibelles make their presence known. The opener, “Mess,” is aptly named; it floods the ears with fuzzed-out and screeching guitars, crashing drums, and screaming vocals reminiscent of the bite of Bikini Kill Kathleen Hanna and the yelp of Le Tigre Kathleen Hanna. Throughout the album, the trio uses their guitars as expressively as they use their voices. Guitars shriek, hang in suspense, and drive aggressively. In “Pas Les Humains,” an interlude of sorts, people fade into the distance as glitchy, indecipherable speech, leaving layers of instruments to forcefully propel the listener into the second half of the album.
Beside the assertive guitars and dynamic yelling exists a lighter, poppier strain that runs through Tight. Counter to the opening song’s title, the album’s name also represents it well. Decibelles makes tight, well-crafted music that takes care with its melodies and their underlying compositions. After “Mess” comes “Super Fish,” comprised of a brighter, more rigidly-structured sound. Reaching Strokes-level fuzz, the guitars set the tone for a clearer, airier track. “Sausage Day,” “Le Seum,” and “Witchy Babes” also favor a sparser, plainer tone with more more pop sentiments. Though production sometimes feels thin on these quieter tracks, they allow Decibelles to achieve an overall balance on the album, alternating between total submersion in noise and breaths of fresh air.
While they mix in brighter, gentler sounds amid the aggression, Decibelles is anything but soft in their sentiments. At the center of Tight are proclamations of independence, empowerment, and general feminist badassery. In “Sausage Day,” they dismiss the complaints lodged against women’s appearances, singing, “Your skirt is too tight / Your clothes don't fit you right / They say they are looking for romance... / I just want to dance.” In “Hu! Hu!,” a propulsive song structured around repeated yelps, the singer repeats, “Are you kidding me?” Later, she challenges, “Do you think I’m your damn secretary / Do you expect me to make your coffee / You’re not my daddy.” Like riot grrrls who came before them, Decibelles use a punk platform to tackle what’s on their minds, not only singing about their boldness, but also enacting it with their sound. “Should I be scared of the night?” Decibelles repeat in “Hu! Hu!,” but after a listening to their easy, fun, and striking new album, it’s hard to imagine that they fear anything.