Crashride - Crashride album review

French-Canadian duo Crashride blend warmth and wizardry

Crashride - Crashride album artwork

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

Montreal’s emergence as a hotspot for novel music of purpose has accelerated in recent years. Rising electronic-based duo Crashride are multi-instrumentalist Jean-Sébastien Côté and guitarist Francois Therriault, and their nuanced textures defy geographical pigeonholes to float across land and sea with Esperanto grace.

Tangerine Dream seems to be the most common comparison applied to them, but this album’s rippling rhythms never settle for one default mode, whispering too of gentle progressive rock and meditative chill-out soundscapes. While it’s mostly instrumental, Frederike Bedard’s vocals infiltrate three tracks, hinting of This Mortal Coil in their elegant grandeur mixed with a pulse more warmly Vangelis than icily Kraftwerk.

Father is the stand-out, and not just because it enjoys stellar guest spots from Tony Levin on bass and Gerry Leonard (David Bowie) on guitar. You could discern some Pink Floyd in its bubbling bloodstream, but on the loopy, cinematic, On The Run end of that spectrum. Venice has flickers of jazz fusion, while other tracks will speak to fans of Air and The Besnard Lakes. Crashride’s flaw might be a lack of a unique ID, but this is easy to enjoy.

Chris Roberts

Chris Roberts has written about music, films, and art for innumerable outlets. His new book The Velvet Underground is out April 4. He has also published books on Lou Reed, Elton John, the Gothic arts, Talk Talk, Kate Moss, Scarlett Johansson, Abba, Tom Jones and others. Among his interviewees over the years have been David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Al Green, Tom Waits & Lou Reed. Born in North Wales, he lives in London.