Wave Records W156, Young And Cold Records YCR/144 (2023)

French Coldwave band from Bourges. Opera Multi Steel was born during the winter of 1983 in Bourges, a city in the center of France.

After "D'une Pierre deux Tombes", a funereal and introspective album released in 2021, Opra Multi Steel returns with its thirteenth studio album: "Les Passions tristes". 

The group remains faithful to the sound of the founding instruments that have made it unique since its beginnings. The evolution started on the previous album with the use of more electro rhythms and sequences continues. The pride of place remains given to the vocal melodies, synthetic pads and mechanical backgrounds created by the three musicians and which are a trademark of Opra Multi Steel, sometimes tinged with recorders that sometimes bring a medieval hint. The band therefore evolves with constancy, without however denying its origins. 

That said, the music, more up-tempo than on the previous album, does not engender a frenzied melancholy. OMS has always known how to keep distance from the members respective obsessions by mitigating them with a veil of irony and by sprinkling their songs with occasional or referential sound effects, some of them are directly linked to childhood, history, literature, cinema... OMS remains for its members the crucible in which they can mix their common or individual inclinations and their personal stories… The tragedy of some themes is never exempt from a certain dose of lightness in the tone… Some tracks could be easily danceable (Dites-nous, Tout en Tous, Tombs Terre, Le Soleil est parti…) Some others are developing some more melancholic mood (A nos Moments perdus, Les Toiles…). Au grand Jamais with Catherine Marie as lead vocalist will bring back some memories from a previous side-project of OMS members called “O Quam Tristis”.