What's going on with the french electro rock scene? First a great album by Emile Simon that bends the genre into her own sound of not-rock meets not-electronica and now Watine gives us the US release of Dermaphrodite that follows this successful trend. Dermaphrodite is too smart to be electro with the wonderful quiet moments and sparse piano lines. It is too hip to be trip-hop with the Massive Attack-style drum skittering that goes beyond copying into "influenced-by". It is too mellow to really be "rock" and rightfully so. Who needs loud guitar choruses to prove a song is well-written?

1. Follow My Vision
2. Sing C'est La Vie
3. Afraid
4. Like Those Films
5. Not A Pretence
6. Milkshake
7. Charabia
8. Need I Go On
9. Anymore
10. I Adore

Standout tracks like "Charabia" builds along a nice chamber piano melody and keeps flowing with a melancholy sing-song bounce that would fit nicely into any Tim Burton movie. Another song following that model is "Anymore", again, a piano leads the song but the quiet electronic bleeps and kicks lend this cinematic track that necessary extra depth. "Like Those Films" is the perfect example of restraint. Where Kate Bush or Tori Amos would delve into the emotional element of the song to an extreme, Watine shows a reserve that keeps the song from veering into self-indulgent melodrama. "Not A Pretense" has a very jazzy backdrop that will have you snapping along like a Triplets Of Bellville audience.

The best track to sample Watine is the opener, "Follow My Vision". Please listen all the way through, thank you; nice strings, breathy vocals, acoustic guitar, and Beatle-esqe piano, all wrapped in a modern sheen of electronic drums and a strumming electric noise backdrop.

Released just in time as a great album to welcome in the spring with a little dreary sky, creating shadows and highlights on the glimmering new life that's just beginning to peak above the ground.

~ Dedric Moore

* Release date is estimated

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