Kim Novak - Luck and Accident

by John Clarkson

published: 31 / 1 / 2008

Label: Talitres
Format: CD

First rate debut album from early 80's influenced new French group, Kim Novak

Review

Despite taking their name from the 50’s actress, French group Kim Novak’s music is rooted in another musical era, that of the early 80’s. One gets the impression from listening to ‘Luck and Accident’, their debut album, that its four members, Jeremie, Ugo, Cyrill and Hairday, have a lot of Joy Division and New Order in their individual record collections, but also early Depeche Mode and even Billy Idol. Yet, especially in Jeremie’s angst-torn and sung-in-English vocals which have a shrill, otherworldly etherality, and just for sheer diversity, Kim Novak, however, have much of their own as well. Many of the eleven songs on ‘Luck and Accident’ start simply and then escalate in sound, climaxing in washes of synthesiser and more occasionally My Bloody Valentine-style distortion. In ‘Turn’, a tale of love gone cold, with its jangling, super-melodic synthesiser beats and its mid point sudden eruption of flailing guitar, Kim Novak have created a pop classic. ‘Female Friends’ is similarly effective, beginning and ending in a snappy two and a half minutes, and which, coming to the conclusion that sex always gets in the way and that men and women can never really just be friends, finishes in a surging joint frenzy of guitars and synths. Although Kim Novak are possibly at their best when they are loud, they can also, however, do quiet. The contemplative ‘In the Mirror’ is a mournful, spoken word ballad which finds Jeremie accompanied by just a softly, tingling guitar for its first half before being joined by an equally hazy synth, while ‘If’, another story of love that has not worked out, is a torch ballad that with Jeremie’s tortured, theatrical vocals recalls Scott Walker at his strongest. ‘Luck and Accident’ is a very fine debut offering from this most promising new French group.

Track Listing:-

1 Better Run
2 Swallow
3 Turn A Rabbit
4 Lost At Play
5 In The Mirror
6 If
7 Female Friends
8 Around Your Neck
9 Some Photographs
10 Crash
11 On My Back