NEW ALBUM | Lézard - Que Se Passe-t-il

Lézard debut album ‘Que Se Passe-t-il’

Lézard are a band from Belgium, and in retrospect, that kind of checks out. A country fractured down the middle between its Dutch and French-speaking population, confusion ought to be a default state of mind. Their high-wired concoction of post-punk, disco, glam rock, new wave and electro-clash treads that fine line between comedy and tragedy – songs that unravel as both the theatrical release and the cacophony behind the scenes.

It’s exactly within these fractures and fault lines where Lézard reap infinite creative possibilities, tunes so winsome and blistering hot they beg you to take a peek inside. Their debut album Que Se Passe-t-il is a diorama where the heartbroken, the voyeurs, the drug-addled and the dreamers mingle beneath a shattered mirrorball. You are forgiven if you yourself at some point lose the plot, for Lézard insist on turning the camera distraughtly on themselves: What in the actual fuck is going on in this big blue rock we inhabit?

Lézard don’t claim to fix the permanently broken, but they will pull out all the stops to fill up the emptiness with their wholly entertaining sonic pyrokinetics. Lézard ain’t exactly towing the same line within this band situationship. In fact, the hysterical chemistry between Neil Claes and Myrthe Asta sprawls all over the place, inventing a brand new dance they themselves don’t even know the name of. The backbone of Lézard – the foundation from which their hostile dancefloor takeovers sprout – comes in the shape of Andreas Duchi (bass) and Roel Delplancke (drums). And finally, the band’s fickle wild card Viktor De Greef, who presides over an arsenal of squiggly synths that seem to meddle with the game plan at every turn.

On the strength of their first batch of singles, kickstarting with the fizzy “Nothing at All”, Lézard built a reputation for spectacle on stages both home and abroad, including festivals slots at Reeperbahn, MaMA, The Great Escape, Pukkelpop, Best Kept Secret, ESNS and Radiance. The five band members keenly retooled their repertoire for Que Se Passe-t-il – tightening the songs’ arrangements, livening their scenery and broadening their lyrical scope, before laying them down with producer Bert Vliegen. The trademark hullabaloo of Lézard’s live shows is now captured like bolts of lightning inside a bottle.

The strange sceneries buzz around Lézard’s groovy geometrics like hives of insects – and they execute it all with a joyous abandon. The anxious existentialism of “Manifastique” hit Neil on the head while queuing in Paris amidst the shutterbugs and strung out skylarkers. Language is stretched to its breaking point on the Myrthe-led “Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop Pop Stop” – its defeatist tale masquerading like a victory lap with its jeering squalls of guitar. “Person of Consistency” scapegoats the peddling online guru types with tongue damn near cleaving cheek in half, and the album’s bouncy title track slithers beneath the surface of polarisation – accelerating into a Devo-like climax that bangs some heads and beats some butts.

Lézard are equally compelling when they take a vacation from their own infectious trapeze act, like on the fragmented “How Does It Feel?”, with Neil adrift in limbo between Young Americans and Scary Monsters. “Love Is In The Air” is a love song that plays with stereotypes in a lighthearted way. Que Se Passe-t-il’s requisite slow burner “Wonder What They Said” is Neil’s dystopian tale of a broken homefront – showing that beneath the tip of Lézard’s absurdist whims, lies an iceberg of real-world reckoning.

The sheer fun in making Que Se Passe-t-il is splitting at the seams within these 13 recordings. As is evident with romps like “Dance Tonight”, the reimagined (Stereolab-sampling) opener “Coltrane & XTC” and the Chicks on Speed-influenced electro-punk nursery of “Rock & Roll”. And, speaking in hypotheticals, if Lézard would have a go at the Eurovision Song Contest, surely “Party In The U.S. of E.” would make the ultimate statement: a grandiose tongue-twisting chronology of a Europe gradually spiralling from supposed ‘united front’ to a fractured mess where fascism and nationalism seem to run unchecked.

As contrarian as it may sound, it’s not that far-fetched to consider Que Se Passe-t-il  both a breakup and a comeback record – a supercharged, schismatic affair. For the five bustling souls that make up Lézard have indeed taken refuge from playing the game of life fast and loose. All the ghosts and ghouls of those hazy all-nighters sucked and compressed into a box, then turned loose again into juicy pumped up disco punk jams that possess body and spirit in novel, unruly ways.

Even as the walls tumble down again, indeed, you can count on Lézard to stubbornly relight that beacon every time they come ‘round town.