With the release of Juillet, Parisian quintet En Attendant Ana make good on the promise of their album Lost and Found (2018, Trouble In Mind), diligently crafting a set of ten songs that shimmer, glide and sway with a sophistication only hinted at by their debut. Recorded by Vincent Hivert and Alexis Fugain over the course of one week at Studio Claudio, an isolated studio in rural France, Juillet is the sound of a band reshaping itself, adapting to numerous transitions both within the band and in life. Whereas the tunes on Lost and Found felt wild and reckless, the songs on Juillet feel focused, composed by the band over six months, working a much as possible on arrangements, structure to create a set of songs that feel bonded together by the magnetic pull of each other; each shines on their own, but viewed as a whole, they dazzle. Songs like Do You Understand? and the first single Words point toward a new frontier for the group, effortlessly sharpening their razor-sharp hooks to such a fine point, you almost don't realize their complexity. Elsewhere, songs like Flesh or Blood and opener Down The Hill revel in the push/pull dynamics they teased at on Lost and Found while earworm tunes like In / Out's poetic lyrics bounce atop a toe-tapping pulse (courtesy of rhythm section of bassist Antoine Vaugelade and drummer Adrien Pollin). Finally, songs like From My Bruise To An Island and the sparse When It Burns bridge a confessional narrative atop an amorphous ambient float.
