After about nine years spent etching a small but indelible mark upon the Canadian punk scene with Simple Plan, it's understandable why guitarist Sebastien Lefebvre would want to step out on his own. While three chords and a quiver full of songs about girls were great for establishing Simple Plan as stalwart (if fairly unremarkable) purveyors of skate/pop punk, doing the same thing over and over again gets tiresome after a while (Simple Plan's been doing it for three full-length albums and two EPs now) and the itch to push against the boundaries of personal style eventually becomes all-consuming.
Perhaps that's why there seems to be a conscious effort made by Lefabvre to get away from every staple of Simple Plan's sound on You Are Here / Vous Êtes Ici. Each of the EP's seven tracks steer as far from Lefabvre's main band as possible; there are no distorted guitars or punk hooks anywhere to be found, Lefebvre indulges his bilingual background on "La Nouvelle Vie" and the EP as a whole bears the marks of being a bunch of songs written (and possibly demoed) late at night while the guitarist's bandmates slept on their tour bus. Lefebvre strums and croons tentatively as he treads into "Comatose," "Good Night" and "I Fall For You" like a player clearly used to playing the sideman now uncomfortably cast up front – but while none of the songs really achieves that moment when audiences will stand entranced, it is heartening to hear the guitarist damn the torpedoes and bravely put himself out there with a softer side not seen in Simple Plan. At each stop along the way too, the very spare 'Acoustic-Guitar-And-Vocals' arrangements get augmented with a deceptively large ensemble of backing instrumentation that punctuates key moments in each song (when the small string section and piano appears as it does in "Comatose," the feeling that comes with them comes totally unexpected and revelatory as a result) and emphasizes both the pop balladry and romantic sentiments in the songs, making them instantly hummable at least and will definitely have a few unsuspecting listeners singing in the shower the next day; it'll be a surprising moment when it happens to you, I guarantee it.
Because such a release is totally unexpected from a long-since-established punk, You Are Here / Vous Êtes Ici will cause even the most jaded ears to sit up and take notice from the early moments forward. It will come as, very simply, a shock for anyone familiar with Sebastien Lefebvre's background with Simple Plan because such fine-tuned song-smithing is miles from the guitarist's established norm. That isn't to say it's unwelcome though; in fact, You Are Here / Vous Êtes Ici is fantastic because it opens up a host of new possibilities not previously envisioned for Sebastien Lefebvre. In the end, it's ironic somehow that Lefebvre stole away from Simple Plan to further strip and simplify his music only to arrive that sounds better and more emotionally complex than anything he's been involved with previously.
Artist:
www.sebastienlefebvre.ca/
www.myspace.com/sebastienlefebvreofficial
Album:
You Are Here / Vous Êtes Ici comes out on October 20, 2009 through Coalition Entertainment/Warner. Pre-order it here on Amazon .
