It was amidst a dizzying flurry of questions on the nature of Time that the third opus by Les Breastfeeders, Dans la geule des jours, came into being. In stores since March 8th 2011, via Blow The Fuse, the album grafts philosophical inquiry onto a backdrop of hard-hitting rock’n’roll. The band has envisioned the 13 tracks as tableaux representing each of them in the face of temporality, a concept developed by humans that brings with it a great many questions – is Time a fabrication of the mind, or is it intrinsic to nature? Here we have a pulsating rock album laced through with an elaborate and expanding idea; an album in which, as always, Les Breastfeeders shuffle the deck of their influences in an attempt to distance themselves from the clichés that bedevil certain musical genres.

Dans la gueule des jours has, beneath an avalanche of decibels, a strikingly literary lyrical content. Written for the most part in the early morning, the album’s lyrics comprise a joyous and poignant hymn to the idea of time unfurling and slipping through one’s fingers.

Through a kind of nocturnal poetry, longing for the sun, Les Breastfeeders transport their listeners to a world of images. Will the days finally swallow us? Are we born once the days spit us back out? Is naked truth to be found under the blinding sun? Dawn or dusk, for the chasing of shadows? What do we really know? One thing is certain, and it’s that Les Breastfeeders are again pushing the limits of their rock/pop hybrid, not hesitating to slow the tempo down and bring in a 4-piece string ensemble; to chop up a song’s rhythm with the help of a South American marimba virtuoso; to tack on a chorus of savage-sounding children’s cries to a fuzzy squall of guitars or to drift away in a daydream with the gentle lull of carnival organs. While remaining faithful to their raw and primitive guitar sound, never before have they brought forth such varied textures from their 6-strings – a rock’n’roll stomp linking up with the beautiful frenzy of the more mellow passages in a sky of ether and fire!

Worth noting is the collaboration of Etienne Charry - co-founder with Michel Gondry, Gilles Chapat and Nicolas Dufournet of the late ‘80s pop-rock group Oui Oui – who wrote one of the songs on the album, Manteau de Froid. The album, loaded with pretty vocal harmonies and catchy choruses, was recorded at the Stock Market in Montreal and produced by Joseph Donovan, Adrian Popovich and Les Breastfeeders themselves.

Dans la gueule des jours just might be the most joyous and danceable Breastfeeders album yet...