Yelle – Village Underground, London 04/03/15

09 March 2015, 09:51 | Written by Russell Warfield

(Live)

(Yelle)

For those – like me – who don’t speak a word of French, a Yelle concert is always going to lean heavily on bewildering spectacle, rather than inviting close analysis. But whether you understand the language or not, this seems to be what they’re going for, at least to a degree. It’s a pulsating, flashing, throbbing jolt of a dance-pop set, and its sense of fun ultimately outweighs its apparent shallowness.

Yelle – a dual-drummer, live vocalist, and electronics-coming-from-somewhere trio – came to prominence in the mid-noughties; a time which doesn’t exactly feel long ago, but in which it was still possible to become famous via a) a diss track, and b) MySpace. The song – catchy, sassy and vulgar – was a deserved success, giving an early jolt to forth wave feminist sentiment a few years ahead of the crest of the wave.

Since then, their dedication to sticking to strengths results in a mixed good tonight: strong, brash and visceral music, which oscillates somewhere between hedonism and two-dimensionality.

Undoubtedly, their sound is at least a little kitsch, but it more than survives on Yelle’s (the name of the singer, as well as the band) red-hot melodies and shit-hot sharpness. Her stage presence is electric – cutting out her genuinely addictive, uplifting hooks with real flair. The songs are sticky and moreish. She cuts a powerful presence in a commanding way.

Allow yourself to detach from the bludgeoning force of lights, bass and choreography, though, and it’s easy to wonder whether what you’re hearing is actually interesting, or just loud. When the drummers leave their kits to enter into synchronised movement, it looks cool for a bit, until it goes on a little too long and you realise what they’re doing is actually yawningly simple. A memorable moment where they stare at each other in elongated stasis, before suddenly embracing, is clearly intended as an Important Statement. It rings a little hollow though.

Moments of distraction are fleeting, however. The main thrust of Yelle’s set is of unrelenting momentum, synergy and excitement. It’s good at keeping you captivated by any means necessary. The songs are strong enough to carry their fundamental simplicity. You could attack this 4/4 Euro-pop for a slight lack of ambition or development, but the performance never quite lets you. Engage with it as it asks you to and it’s a good set, pulsing with the power of pop done well.