Review Summary: The Golden Age is almost here.
Yoann Lemoine is a man whose artistic vision has completely consumed him. He creates all of his music from scratch, as a singular entity. He directs all of his videos. He even creates the stories, which tie together all three of his singles. The entire complex affair is a work wrought entirely by his vivid and twisted imagination. And it certainly shows. His products are as distinct as can be, and stand as some of the most interesting spectacles in recent music (Author's massive exaggerating). But how does the album stand by itself? Is the absence of the accompanying videos enough to detriment the album as a whole? The answer, surprisingly, is no.
Woodkid's orchestral pop compositions have a sense of genuine grandiose, unlike most of his contemporaries' works. They rise and fall like turbulent waves, dark as the depths below them. And they lay claim to some impressive depths, to be sure. The elaborate layering of violin, piano and various other classical instrumentation is juxtaposed by the very nature of the music; simple pop melodies, leading into addictive choruses. Thus why the formula works by its lonesome. The music is constantly relevant, in a multitude of ways and shapes, keeping the listener fastened to the seat beneath them. Woodkid has done an admirable job of keeping each track interesting, as if each one was a bite-sized tale, to be regaled again and again.
This story book is not without it's plot-holes, however. The three singles still reign over all else in terms of relative quality, and while the other tracks do an admirable job of keeping pace, and at times rivaling them, it can feel like the rest were just arranged around what felt the most potent, as opposed to what worked in track order. Iron somehow tail-ends the album, which seems confusing considering it begins the trio of singles (as well as the story), and the middle portion tends to drag on a tad, where the tracks begin to blur into the next. This dissolves relatively quickly, but a more thought-out song order could have prevented this.
So overall, though the blemishes here and there detract from it's ravaging beauties, 'The Golden Age' ends up being almost that; golden. Maybe just silver for now, but with a potential for greatness just beyond the horizon, all Woodkid has to do now is reach.
