MLGG: Pop Culture News, Reviews & Interviews

It’s not often that I cover music on the blog; even less so when it’s a musical genre that I’m fairly unfamiliar with. Yet French alternative rock band Nothing but Real have carefully created a unique universe to accompany their upcoming concept album – titled Lost in the World – which is populated by Manga-style characters. Their Twitter profile describes Nothing But Real as a ‘Manga Rock Band’, which immediately marks them out as somewhat unique.

I’ve always been really interested in music and bands that create a unified look or feel that goes way beyond their music – see bands such as Daft Punk with their Interstella 5555 project, or Gunship with their 80s movie soundtrack synth style and vast range of near-endless pop culture references within and outside of the tracks themselves. It elevates the music and creates a much more satisfying audiovisual experience.

With Nothing But Real, their music also goes beyond the rock genre, incorporating elements from plenty of different styles; that sort of musical hybridisation also interests me a lot more than something which is easily pigeonholed. Though there are tracks on Lost in the World – which releases on the 25th of March – that do feel a bit too straightforwardly ‘rock’ for my tastes, there’s enough there in the lyrical content and experimental feel on other tracks to keep things interesting.

Their new single, Behind the Door, which releases today, is one of those tracks that wouldn’t ordinarily appeal to me, but the track’s cover art is brilliantly done, reminding me of a 90s Vertigo comic book, with layers of intriguing details that raise plenty of questions about the story behind the image. The track itself – and I hope the band doesn’t mind the comparison – puts me in mind of another piece of 90s culture: Skunk Anansie, which is certainly not a bad thing.

According to the band themselves, the new song is about a toxic relationship arising from admiration for another person. In their own words, the band say, “We all had someone we admired. A charismatic, ambitious and dangerous personality. While we know he is toxic, he manipulates us, he is evil, we do not care. We want to be his shadow. So we hope to follow in his footsteps behind this door…”

You can listen to Behind the Door via Spotify at this link. The video for the single releases on the 3rd of March. Nothing But Real’s album Lost in the World releases on the 25th of March. Many thanks to Fanny Hulard for bringing the band to my attention and allowing me to preview their single and album.

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