I’m not going to beat around the bush: Everything Is Noise is doing an exclusive full album premiere for FIRST DRAFT‘s debut LP, An Instant Before the Promise of Dawn, which you can find below with a single flick of your thumb or 153° clockwise rotation on your mouse scroll wheel. While the band name would suggest one thing, this is far from our first time featuring this French duo on the site, as we’ve premiered a single from their first EP and subsequently became smitten enough to feature them as a Weekly Featured Artist. So much like one would say ‘this ain’t my first rodeo’ at their second or third rodeo, I can semi-truthfully say ‘this ain’t my (or rather EIN‘s) first draft’ of an article for this band!
You could call FIRST DRAFT a drum and bass artist, but that’d be incredibly misleading (suggesting D&B-esque music) despite being technically accurate. FIRST DRAFT is an exciting duo made up of Marine Arnoult and Clément Douam on drums/vocals and bass respectively, with their sound existing in the ambiguous grey area between post rock and post hardcore. They are set to debut their first full-length through Vlad Productions this Friday, October 10! So why not click play on the embed below and if you’re fancying what you’re hearing, I strongly encourage you to add them to your library!
At an immediate first listen to the album, I get a massive splash of nostalgia with Arnoult’s vocals being very reminiscent to that of Anthony Green, a vocalist right at the heart of many bands that I listened to in my formative years with all the many bands/projects he’s been involved in. That in itself is a massive compliment to Arnoult but not to suggest that they’re mimicking those vocals. The vocals here sit right in the sweet spot between familiar but also entirely novel. On top of providing vocals, Arnoult is also going to town on the drums, which is always immensely impressive when anyone is able to simultaneously nail vocal melodies and complex rhythms using the rest of their body. Being able to segment your brain (and thus body) to accomplish such a feat never fails to blow me away. Reminds me of Stefanie Mannaerts of Brutus, whose music isn’t that stylistically different to FIRST DRAFT in reality.
FIRST DRAFT waste zero time in hooking in the listener with choppy rhythms and infectious vocal melodies on “For A Few Minutes More”, establishing the sound and energy that you’ll become familiar with and addicted to throughout the rest of An Instant Before the Promise of Dawn. “Agnostalgic” and “My Courage is Prey” dial it back a tad to allow for Douam’s supporting bass lines and Arnoult’s tender vocals to play off of one another in these gentler sections, building up to satisfying releases of tension later onwards. When it comes to the deeper meaning behind the album, Douam had this to say:
‘An Instant Before the Promise of Dawn is, for us, a fragile but tenacious voice, trying to rise above tyranny, fear, shame and loneliness. It is our own attempt to find a way out, to look to the end of the road and try to find solutions to break out of our isolation. It is a cry that we try to raise to ward off bad luck, to regain courage and hope, even if we sometimes feel like we are in the midst of ruins. It is a snapshot of those moments when paralysis freezes us while anger burns beneath our skin.‘
An Instant Before the Promise of Dawn drops this Friday and you can be among the first few fortunate souls outside the band and label to feast your ears on it here in full! If you’re so inclined, grab a copy of it on wax, as it’ll only sound warmer than it already is! Swing by the band’s website, Bandcamp, Facebook, and Instagram (the social gamut if you will) to keep yourself fully informed on all future activities related to FIRST DRAFT, as their music sounds like anything but.
