Record Review: Le Loup - “The Throne of…”

September 4, 2007 by Matthew  Send to a Friend

One of the most anticipated local (and beyond) albums this fall drops next week and we tell you whether it lives up to expectations. (hint: it does)

Rating system
0 stars - Complete and utter garbage
1 star - Best just not to ever press play, save your ears for another day
2 stars - Not completely atrocious, but one you’ll probably forget about as soon as it’s over
3 stars - Good, but not great, likely with some excellent songs and others you’ll skip right through
4 stars - Damn good album, one you’ll definitely want to enjoy again and again
5 stars - Instant Classic

Le Loup The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly
4.5 stars

Playing in a local band, you get a lot of offers to open for and play with a lot of other mediocre local and touring acts, so when a friend from college invited us to open for his new band back in April, I thought nothing of it at the time. But what poured forth from my speakers when I ambled over to Le Loup’s Myspace page stopped me dead in my tracks. This was no ordinary local band.

As the banjo and multi-track vocals of “Le Loup (Fear Not)” hit my ears, the comparison to Animal Collective first came to mind, but the further I ventured into the song, the more I realized Le Loup had crafted a sound that was entirely their own. Their debut album, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly, named after the life’s work of artist James Hampton, was recorded almost entirely by Sam Simkoff (with the assistance of Christian Ervin) in his apartment on his computer using Garage Band software. Besides the aforementioned Animal Collective, Le Loup also brings The Books and Sufjan Stevens to mind, but when all is said and done, Sam Simkoff has created a sound that is intricate and experimental yet at the same time extremely accessible.

The album opens with “Canto I,” named after the first chapter of Dante’s Inferno, which features a monologue about disconnection and alienation spoken over several banjos, various forms of percussion and an army of voices singing only “oohs” and “ahhs”. It is followed immediately by the excellent “Planes like Vultures” which for the first minute and thirteen seconds features only Sam Simkoff’s voice layered atop itself countless times, some clean, some altered by computer effects. And while an army of voices is singing, a sense of loneliness and despair is evoked by the complete lack of any music behind them and the near-silence that lingers in between the breaks in the words. Finally the voices are joined by drums, piano and synthesizer, giving the song a warmer feeling while “O, this world was made for ending” is chanted over and over, maintaining the sense of hopelessness that the album has conveyed thus far.

The album continues as a journey through dark times, coming to “Canto XXXIV,” (interestingly the last chapter of Dante’s Inferno), which opens with the same banjo riff that began the album’s first track, instead of the spoken words, however, we are greeted by Simkoff’s voice singing about “lifting her body up like a gleaming white-hot silver orb” conveying a mood infinitely more hopeful than the note the album began on. It closes with the line “The skies will open up and sun-drenched clouds will part like doves,” signifying, perhaps, that there is still hope of good in the world. The song segues into the gorgeous album closer, “I Had a Dream I Died” which urges the listener to “tell all your friends you loved them all doubtlessly,” and seems to find our narrator awaking from a dream of death to birds chirping and the start of a beautiful new day.

The journey from despair to hope is filled with some spectacular songs, like the infectious “We Are Gods! We Are Wolves!” built around a simple synthesizer riff, handclaps and chants of “Give your soul to us, give your heart to us.” “Look to the West” opens with Simkoff singing over a sparse organ before guitar, bass and drums kick in, completely changing the vibe of the song and giving it a fantastic groove. “Outside of this Car, the End of the World!” builds from a simple song of vocals and drums into a full-blown rocker that ends right as it reaches its apex.

The Throne . . . is a stunning debut by a band that has already evolved by leaps and bounds since the recording of the album. Namely, they’ve moved from Simkoff recording on a computer in his apartment to a seven piece rock juggernaut that puts on amazing live shows. With a genius like Sam Simkoff at the helm, Le Loup has the potential to do some amazing things and I can’t wait to see where they go from here. This isn’t just the next great band from D.C., this is the next great American band.

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