Guided By Voices-esque wordplay meets music like Beulah's (without the horns) on this Philadelphia indie rock band's new EP, which examines the full-on, sweeping, epic, and ultimately futile attempts to stop loving someone.

3 MP3 Songs in this album (12:37) !
Related styles: Rock: Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Rock: French Rock, Featuring Guitar

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As a people, the French are known for their love of love. On the other side of the Atlantic, Philadelphia indie rockers The Quelle Source are tackling something just a little different on their new EP The French Rapture: the full-on, sweeping, epic, and ultimately futile attempts to stop loving someone.

Thatâs some serious shit, and not easy to accomplish, as anyone whoâs loved someone who doesnât love them back can attest. But this is The Quelle Source, a band that proudly touted the fact that their previous release â debut LP Enjoy the Ridge â contained precisely zero love songs. In other words, the groupâs members arenât about to wallow, and certainly not openly. Their MO: Take those down-and-out lyrics and that depressing song content, mash âem up against some pretty harmonies, dense reverb, and overdrive, and go to town.

Case in point: Title track âThe French Raptureâ rides a climbing, catchy-as-all-hell bass line, timely group vocals and sprightly synth work so engagingly that itâs easy to miss the songâs true content â which, of course, concerns a guy not-so-convincingly justifying his decision to cheat on his girlfriend. âI could have sworn that I was a good man / but you have no idea how it feels to be surrounded.â Whoops â nice try, but those arenât the words of someone whoâs sorry.
The b-sides are no less drastic. Drummer Brendan Laffertyâs blisteringly distorted high-hat hits try their damnedest to outmatch singer Kevin Ryanâs layered harmonies on âNever Be Hungry Againâ before Dan Wisniewskiâs lead vocals enter and growl in caterwaul. The track â a patient, pulsing trip grounded in Dan Comlyâs solid keyboard work â is a successful break from the structural and musical norms of a band that sometimes finds it hard to revisit the same musical idea twice in the same song.

The EP concludes with âI Never Saw You Kiss Him,â a plaintive, deceptively simple indie pop song that turns the ruminations inward. The tune ends with a drunken group questioning, en masse, âShouldnât we love the people who love us?â â an absurd request borne more out of desperation and fear of facing the unknown than anything else. As the group vocals fade, you can hear Wisniewski say, âLetâs do it again,â only to be met with bewilderment: âWhat?â âNo.â Those two denials â coincidentally both from women â are a fitting end, especially for an album examining something as ubiquitous, lovely, inescapable and destructive as relationships.

The French Rapture was recorded in Philadelphia, both at The Quelle Sourceâs headquarters in East Falls and at The Sweat Lodge, a makeshift studio in Fishtown. The tracks were mixed and mastered by Jesse Soifer from The Sweat Lodge and Cody Cichowski at Milkboy Studios in Ardmore, PA.