French electronic pop musician Emmanuel De Héricourt (known as EDH) has a strange sound that cannot be easily recreated. Her trance-like programming and vocals create a world of haunting sounds. Although Yaviz is different from her previous releases over the years, approximately five songs in, it begins to feel a bit redundant. Maybe this was her goal, considering her past records had a lot of variety. The opener, “Ice,” is an upbeat dance tune. Like the rest of her songs to follow, it doesn’t have many lyrics. When there are lyrics present, they are almost unrecognizable.
“Looking” and “Hound” have dark and mysterious qualities. Keyboard tracks tend to sound monotonous, which this unfortunately falls to. Along with those two, “Greenless” is a song the album could do without. Alike beats continue with “Jingle War” and “Flying Bye.” It almost could be one big song split into 11 separate ones—intentional or not, we’ll never know. The last three installments drone on with similar styles of beats.
It appears that EDH wanted her album to focus on the programming and keys, so the vocals are minimal. She has a good concept, but the execution is poor. Her previous releases have more life to them; the beats are eccentric and grab your attention. There is a contrast from previous years and it makes it difficult to relate to and hard to fully understand where she’s coming from. Her lyrics are all spoken and sung in the same tone throughout the entire CD. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the beats sound too similar to make anyone listen past the second track. If you were looking for a fun new electronic/pop album, I wouldn’t give this one a shot.
In A Word: Distinctive
