SEBASTIEN TELLIER - Kiss the Beast

Sometimes I kiss your lips

Somehow I kiss the beast

The chorus of "Kiss The Beast" immediately conveys the dual soul and contradictions that surface here and there on the new album by Sebastien Tellier. The song that opens and gives its title to the tenth album by the French chansonnier tells us right away that nostalgia for the goddamn 80s is more alive than ever - indeed it's the synthetic glue holding together twelve moments in which Tellier plays at rediscovering himself once again as both a melancholy crooner and a sensual stirrer of synth-pop beats. Proof of this "agitated" dichotomy comes with the following "Naïf de coeur", which sounds like it came off a late Spandau Ballet record, so tragically saccharine is it.

In short, with Sebastien you're soon on a rollercoaster, between highs and lows, brisk moments and lunar ballads. "Refresh", though, quickly brings back Tellier's most Daft Punk-esque spirit, starting with the vocal filters and strings alternating over a backing track that couldn't be more French touch, with lyrics about games to be restarted and other quick, handy metaphors for a spin on the dance floor or an ice lolly on the beach. And then there's "Mouton", another lullaby laced with a strange psychodrama, complete with a tearful piano backing it up and pathos worthy of a new romantic crooner.

Luckily, Slayyyter and Nile Rodgers show up on the potential summer hit "Thrill Of The Night", with a certain Kavinsky stylistically on the radar. But in this rollercoaster of light and shadow, it's unfortunately the shadows that often win out, as if the young seducer still living inside the fifty-one-year-old Sebastien had finally decided to give in to the heartbroken man.

The best moments, then, remain the airier and more dynamic ones, like "Copycat". It's strange that someone like Kid Cudi didn't push to take part in the more energetic side of "Kiss The Beast", choosing instead to contribute to the mournful "Amnesia", a sort of orchestral rap filtered through Tellier's own style. And it's even more absurd that the best slow track of the bunch turns out to be the last one, "Un Dimanche en Famille", giving us a Tellier who wants to open up without any varnish, amid a few piano notes, a deliciously sweet bass line and a dreamlike atmosphere staged to best capture a deep memory of life.

It's the coup de théâtre of an album that only half succeeds, but one that will at least bring good old Sebastien back on tour across Europe after five years away.

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17/02/2026