The Golden Age

Woodkid's Yoann Lemoine has made his mark producing videos for the likes of Lana del Rey and Rihanna, and earned a Grammy nomination for his own Where the Wild Things Are-style single and video, Run Boy Run. That song's narrative – sword-brandishing schoolboy-hero racing wildly towards his destiny – unfolds in full on this filmic debut. It is the crisis of adolescence and all its aches that The Golden Age soundtracks, victories and losses played out in dark, fairytale metaphors. Lemoine's sad, rich vocals are a comforting constant throughout the stormy flux of dramatic orchestral pop: a grand alchemy of swelling strings and crashing drums. But, despite the surge of charging percussion and triumphant fanfare of horns on The Great Escape, an air of grim inevitability haunts the album's arc, and an ominous bell motif tolls the fate of our boy-man protagonist. "The golden age is over," mourns Lemoine, but there's enough wide-eyed magic and spellbinding pomp here to make the adventure worthwhile.