Woodkid - The Golden Age

As a music videomaker, graphic artist and songwriter, there's definitely a touch of apprehension about delving into Woodkid's debut. The frenchman operates under that typically meaningless genre of "neofolk", and has already raised eyebrows with his smouldering, bombastic work on Lana Del Rey's Blue Jeans video, the pretty and sunkissed Teenage Dream video, and his very own WTF moment Run Boy Run. But there's definitely something beguiling there: his crooning voice sits somewhere between Antony Hegarty and David Byrne, and his attention to detail with the orchestral arrangements are often fancy and dizzying.

Real name Yoann Lemoine, Woodkid's debut LP comes at slightly unfortunate timing. The commercial use of Run Boy Run, by today's standards, is so long gone now that it's rendered irrelevant. We therefore cannot expect success of Alex Clare proportions. But who cares about that?

We start off quietly for Lemoine's tastes, where the titular track plays wistfully with pretty piano melodies. "Boys are meant to flee and run away one day", he observes, as he heralds in the majesty and pomp of his ambitious project. We are then greeted with 'Run Boy Run', the frenetic drum-fuelled stomper that builds and forms its own layers of sublimeness as it goes along. But we return to much humbler surroundings on 'The Great Escape', a strings and brass-led hook that speeds along relatively snippily, and doesn't hesitate to put across daft soundbites like "no matter what they say, we're heroes" and "we are racing to the break of dawn". There are then "krakens raging in the sea" on 'Boat Song', a plodding construction of eerie whalesong synths and a simple piano tune that is at least a little charming. In 'I Love You', Woodkid hones his romanticism to a tee and finds a fine, catchy and brisk arrangement to suit it.

There are occasional airs of nostalgia, too - 'The Shore' seems to recall classic French or Bohemian inspiration, and truly awe-inspiring and minimalist (think Glass or Satie) fantastical feelings. "I spend my days without you now and the sky doesn't look that blue", he pores, for further heartstring tugging. Church bells ring on 'Ghost Lights', arguably the most nonsensical lyrical offering ("However fast I dance to make the sun shine, I will never fall down"?!) before two brief tracks - 'Shadows' and 'Stabat Mater' (sorrowful mother) - really demonstrate his ability to say it best without words. The piecing together of various instruments is occasionally wonderful but at such short track lengths, fleeting - but conversely, constrained ideas are executed to death on 'Conquest of Spaces', a really stunted and uninteresting track.

The horror-movie score attributes continue on the hellish interlude 'Falling', before the familial warmth of 'Where I Live' wraps us up nice and warm (or rather, as warm as you can be hearing "where I'm born is where I'll die/ at night I shiver and I try"). The first single 'Iron' then effectively nails all of Woodkid's eccentricities and tricks into one song and with conviction, rather than the occasionally dwindling moments that precede it on the album. Finally, 'The Other Side' marches us out with the death knell of church bells and marching drums.

The whole album feels eerily similar to Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby: overblown, orchestrated pomp with a slightly disconcerting sidelining of actual meaning. Woodkid's greatest trick appears to be fooling hundreds of fans into the belief that because they're hearing a lot of noise, it must automatically be epic. Repeatedly telling your listeners they are heroic doesn't quite equate to greatness. That certainly connects with youth culture's craving of good old American "awesomeness", but only in the same sense that we loved Pirates of the Caribbean: it was a novelty, and it's not going to soundtrack our emotional growth or, ultimately, define our musical palate.

Rating: 5.5/10
Highlights: Run Boy Run; The Shore; Iron; Shadows;
Avoid: The Great Escape; Ghost Lights; Conquest of Spaces

Artwork Watch: Wonderful.
For fans of: Of Monsters and Men; all the rest of that stormy heart-racing nonsense
Up next: Phoenix