Over the last few years, a particularly devastating storm has been raging in our eardrums: King Yosef, with his visceral blend of industrial metal, hardcore and trap, is wrecking everything in his path. From Youth Code's last album, on which he brought his heaviness and rage, to a debut solo album released last year and several singles, all we had to do was welcome the young artist on stage. After a stint in Japan and an American tour with HEALTH, he was in France for the first time with a date organised by Voulez-Vous Danser, starting with Violence.
VIOLENCE
Some bills are particularly relevant. Violence's association with King Yosef seems obvious to us: the same taste for excessive heaviness and outrageous aggression, the same pleasure in mixing genres and influences to offer a modern, cathartic take on industrial metal boosted by steroids. Behind Violence is Frédéric Garcia, alias Niveau Zero, one of the godfathers of bass music in our country, a guy who already likes to get in people's faces with beats from the abyss and who decided that mixing it with metal would be a good idea.
He was right, even if we can guess that the venue is sweating a bit: was the building designed for this kind of earthquake? Tonight, there were only three of them on stage: with Fabio Meschini (ex-As They Burn) on guitar and John Kazadi (ex-Henker) on vocals, the trio had to make do without their drummer Morgan Sansous, who was stuck abroad. Did they miss him? Well, perhaps. But we can't really imagine what it would have been like, given the heaviness of the impact. Violence kicks ass, with its aggressive light show and its metal / hardcore / bass / dubstep / industrial mix that pushes the limits of excess. Behind Masks, Engine, The Poison and the Cure, Violence will not Save You: one slap after another, it's intense and powerful, ultra-catchy. There's something about this mix that's both pleasurable and nasty: Violence isn't polite, subtle or shy. Violence is all about demolition.
KING YOSEF
Writing and recording alone, Tayves Yosef Pelletier is accompanied on stage by two friends. One plays guitar or keyboards as required, the other bangs on drums. Oh, a real drum kit. So you can immediately feel a difference with Violence: King Yosef has this crazier, more unpredictable, dirtier organic side. After a false start (computers and their whims), the young musician from Portland spits out his guts.
Whereas Violence had a rhythmic approach that made his tracks immediately catchy, King Yosef prefers the chaos of raging emotions, deconstruction and bizarre structures that draw on trap and hardcore. It's less danceable but more personal: the guy seems to struggle with himself on stage, shoots his water bottles, wrestles with the microphone cable, spits out mouthfuls of water along with his guts. And, between two blocks of blackness thrown at the audience (Power and its crescendo of intensity, massive, the explosions of Mist of Pain), he takes the time to thank his audience and enjoy being able to travel around the world while he makes his music alone in his room. With his flayed screams and mullet haircut, he's a cute little guy who admits he hasn't yet given a title to a new track he's played. The very rare lulls are not really lulls at all: An Underlying Hum played at the end of the concert, with its oozing despair, only makes the already unbreathable air that much more unhealthy.
Admittedly, Petit Bain wasn't sold out (and we were surprised that King Yosef was scheduled there for his first visit to France), but the people in attendance knew their stuff inside out and the pit became a nice mess after a couple of songs to warm up. Those who weren't there (including you) missed it, but were probably wondering what were those tremors in the Paris region at around 10pm. Like his music, King Yosef's concert was short but intense, a very angry affair which, after a hefty half-hour, came to an end before an encore... which, for once, did not resemble the usual ritual where everything is staged. The singer returns after being asked to do so, joking "but we've got nothing left to play! What song do you want?" before delivering a cathartic finale worthy of the name. Nothing sticks out, it's wild, intense, brutal, and we suffocated throughout a set that was admittedly short but wouldn't have benefited from being any longer, apart from the pleasure of continuing to sweat and convulse like beasts. Very cool. You probably don't know it yet, but King Yosef is a future heavyweight of the genre.
