A year ago, SIERRA released her debut album, the culmination of an already meteoric rise. With hindsight, we can only conclude that A Story of Anger was - as we suspected - just the start of an adventure that has seen the Parisian artist fill venue after venue ever since (from the metalheads at Hellfest and Motocultor to the goths at Wave Gotik Treffen...). Her dark, futuristic universe comes back to haunt us with a series of remixes, not always an exciting exercise, but one which, here, made us salivate as soon as the casting was known.
Much like its audience and influences, SIERRA has opted for eclecticism. Remixes are interesting when they allow us to rediscover a track, or allow artists to put their own particular signature on it, and here, they've succeeded. Gunship give the cyberpunk ambience of Stronger a more nostalgic warmth with their synthwave, industrial metal trio Horskh boost Never Right with a heavier, more martial touch, Matteo Tura amplifies the urgency of In My Veins, darkwave duo DENUIT drops a dark and mystical veil in a very intense rereading of In My Veins, NNHMN dictates its coldness and EBM-like tension on Never Right... Each track offers a personal yet respectful reinterpretation of the original tracks.
The biggest surprises, unsurprisingly, come from The Ocean, perhaps the band furthest removed from SIERRA's universe. While the most fashionable post-metal project of the moment opted for a more electronic approach with its latest album Holocene, we weren't necessarily expecting to hear singer Loïc Rossetti ranting and raving on SIERRA, nor the seismic finale of Traum, one of the most atmospheric tracks on A Story of Anger (and an instrumental one, originally), which, after a gradual slide, finds himself plunged into a storm of textures and emotions. The result leaves us groggy. Another major curiosity is the beautiful cinematic breaths that TOUTANT offers to By Fire... Placed in the middle of the EP, this new version almost makes us regret that the artist didn't take on this orientation throughout the track, such is the allure of the result!
A year ago, we wagered that SIERRA had not finished looping through our speakers. We were right, and even before we tire of it, the artist invites us to dive back into his raging, melancholy stories, his beats and distortions entrusted to other boom-bap masters (but not only). A Story of Anger - The Remixes is both an ideal follow-up to its equally effective and enjoyable big brother, and an EP that can be enjoyed on its own. The effectiveness of each of these remixes proves once again the universality of SIERRA's formula, always catchy, and whose soul continues to glow in the darkness, even in the hands of others.
