If you ask Gliz to describe their second album, the trio will mention the letting go in their writing, which enabled them to « go towards a kind of psycho-pop, burning with melancholy and energy » and they talk about a more coloured, more contrasted record. And though it’s difficult for artists to sum up months of work in a few sentences , the band does it just right. They only forget to mention the lyrical side of some yarrow pieces on Mass or the dreamy atmosphere of other titles. It isn’t an album you can listen to as background music, with only one ear. It grabs the listeners, pulls them by the sleeve and embarks them in their strange and poetic universe, in which the totem- animal of the cover wanders, trappped in the brutality of our modern urban ways of living.
Between Cydalima (2019), their first album, and Mass , a pandemic occurred, which the Jura trio saw as a chance, an opportunity to take their time. And that’s how Florent, Julien , and Thomas composed about 30 songs, and kept only 10 of them in the end. Gliz doesn’t joke about quality control. To have a chance to end on the album, a piece must both have the ability to send the listener on a trip and to contain the energy necessary on the stage. Florent is the one who brings the backbone of the songs.
A small detail you must know if you discover Gliz for the first time : the band have their own original sound because they use, among other instruments, an electrified banjo and a tuba. Both are used in an unconventional way, since the tuba is used as a base in this power trio where each member can play several roles in total freedom. «We can use pure energy and improvise, we are very close together, we play intuitively. »
The album was recorded in the La Corbière studio , inside an XVIII century farm, lost somewhere in the Haut Jura. A place ideal to dive in nature and search for an authentic sound. Julien Michel , the previous drummer, who has been replaced by Julien Huet, sometimes played live. The Farfisa organ, which they used in their first recording, has remained and brings some depth to the sound, and also adds a little touch of mystery and poetry which can be found all along Mass.
This atmosphere also feeds the lyrics that Florent qualifies of « dark and colourful ,mysterious and disillusioned poetry ».
He draws his inspiration in the permanent clash between the anxiety-provoking news exuded by the media and his own daily life, light-years from that ,in a small village – 50 inhabitants – lost in the middle of the country. The gap between two worlds is emphasized yet again in the artwork of the CD – The previous album was illustrated by a clip both beautiful and nerve-racking : the hatching at night of a hord of those moths that destroy the Jura forests. This time, the cover shows a furry animal inspired by the kukeri – costumes from eastern countries. These are a mixture of human beings and animals and are pagan gods whose function is to chase bad spirits. This animal-totem is the lead in the videos in Mass and it will be confronted to the most brutal elements of the industrial world without understanding what happens. « He has a pure and ancient look on our modern world. He is the telltale sign of everything. « He is a mascot of uncertain origin (« we don’t know if it’s an alien or a yeti… ») full of mystery and poetry, just like Gliz’s music.
