Ponctuation: Mon herbier du monde entier

Québec has had a long tradition of producing garage rock. Bands like Les Sinners, Les Miserables, les Furys etc ... emerged from the initial British Invasion and started a movement that could be argued still continues today. Since the initial wave of 60’s french canadian garage bands, the province has continued to produce some really great contributions to the genre. In more recent times, bands like les Breastfeeders, Chocolat and les Marinellis have continued this tradition, and now on their third album Mon herbier du monde entier, Ponctuation have added another solid entry into the garage rock pantheon.

 Since forming the band, brothers Guillaume and Max Chiasson have released Lèche:Vitine ep (2011), Club 27 (2013), La réalité nous suffit (2015) and have appeared at numerous festivals. 

 Mon herbier du monde entier basks in the kind of fuzz and reverb that their musical ancestors peddled, but there is a modernness to parts of this collection that keep things fresh and far from being a drop in the garage pond. There are enough psychedelic turns that the garage door is left open, letting in rays of sunshine. Opener Trois semaines’ first minute is a slow build with rising synths that eventually bubble and build like the sun rising before the band cracks in with a galloping hip shaker. The wiry guitar work that closes out the track rings in a rollicking start to you next twenty eight minutes. Mi-Arcan, Mi-Bovary briefly steps away from the kaleidoscope sound and jams out a slab of sludgey fuzz full of fist pumping hooks. Nadha Bhrama floats along, sounding like a dream buoyed by a bouncing bass line making numerous left turns before dissipating into the either. If I were walking into a room while The song Fleur were playing, I might be fooled into thinking White Fence’s Tim Presley had learnt french. It is an excellent slice of psych rock that deserves all your air guitar moves, and the tip to White Fence perhaps an indication of more modern influences. 

Apnée drips with liquid guitar, a song probably best served on ice during the upcoming warmer months. 

As the images of flowers that adorn the cut and paste aesthetic of the album cover remind me that spring is around the corner I am also reminded that with spring comes warmer sounds and Ponctuation’s Mon herbier du monde entier has left the garage door open.