Kids Return love soundtracks, and it’s no secret. After an escape to Los Angeles was cut short by the pandemic, the French duo found themselves in lockdown together. They delved into the filmography of Takeshi Kitano, eventually naming their musical partnership after his 1997 film. The duo (made up of Adrien Rozé and Clément Savoye) are inspired by soundtracks by the likes Francis Lai, Michel Legrand, Vladimir Cosma, Ennio Morricone, and Kids Return’s soundtrack composer Joe Hisaishi, and sought to make music that evoked a time when they would “listen to music no questions asked, without understanding, in a pure, natural and emotional state.”
And to their credit, their debut album Forever Melodies captures that youthful ingenuousness. At its best, it revels in dazed summer romances where love seems eternal and days endless. “Make You Stay” is seeped in gilded strings worthy of an end credits sequence, if not a place for Serge Gainsbourg to crop up.
“That you’re in my heart forever / Even after life,” Rozé sings to lost love, airy flute synths carrying him to the sunlit future. “You and I are very physical / And I can’t really tell you why / It seems to be biological / And that’s why we will never get tired of life,” his vocoded voice sings on “You Are the Chorus Of My Song”. His schtick and depth aren’t especially convincing, but the music is – the vocoder voice could even have someone mistaking it for a pillow-soft outtake from Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories on first glance. The song’s chorus also highlights the successful formula the duo have here, as evidenced by the other tracks in the album’s first and more memorable half.
When they find a feature and make good use of it, it carries the rest of the song and sticks in mind above all else. The strings on “Make You Stay”; the gloopy synth on “Lost In Los Angeles” and the killer bass riff on “Am I A Fool?” (which will no doubt have many thinking this is an MGMT track they have heard before); and the glistening harpsichord backdrop on handsome opening track “Orange Mountains” are all the features you come away remembering best. Everything else is endearing, and Rozé and Savoye do a deft job at painting a full, colourful landscape; you won’t come away from these tracks feeling like you’ve misspent your time.
On Forever Melodies’ B-side, however, the features become less distinct, and consequently the music that degree less impressionable. “Forever” and “My Life” are pleasingly-toned plods, but without any distinct features (apart from maybe the tacky synth horns), it’s hard to recall much about them. Final tracks “Going Places” and “Melody” have them sounding like they’ve been listening to too much of The Boy Least Likely To’s The Great Perhaps, and while the sweet innocuous tone suits them, it’s neither quite earnest nor dazzling enough to sweep you up for the ride.
The slipping moment does seem to be the centrepiece “Am I A Fool?” It throws a powerful bout of energy into its aforementioned bass riff, and the duo have to be credited for taking the song in unexpected directions and never simply trying to rely on a few repeating notes over and over, but the energy does dissipate considerably by the song’s end. It feels like coming up for air after being underwater for an extended period, or perhaps more fittingly to the band’s thematic drive, like coming to the end of summer and going back to school and everyday life.
“I don’t feel good / What can I do? / Where is my place on earth?,” Rozé asks during “Am I A Fool?” in full teenage bedroom drama fashion. Fittingly, the duo don’t seem to have quite found a comfortable place to occupy yet. They credit and pride themselves for only making the 10 tracks of the album when recording it, not editing any unused takes from the final product. Had the back five tracks been as strong as the first half, it would be a sign of a band with notable instincts. Instead, some additional tinkering might have helped here and assisted them on their journey to one day soundtracking films. As it is though, Forever Melodies goes half the distance and has Kids Return soundtracking the life of their listeners with a few dazzling moments of indie pop.
