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No Memory Man has already been released more than two years ago, but as Utopium, a Paris based band consisting of members from France, Russia and Mexico, will play a show in Luxembourg in late spring, it’s well worth it to have a look at their debut album. Coming with a cool cover artwork that reminds of stylistically of Hugh Syme and a top notch production, the band wanders from postrock to indie rock and back again. The opener Deuce for instance is 100% post rock, while the following Sandstorm sees the band flirting with late Eighties psychedelic alternative sounds, somewhere between The Jesus And Mary Chain and Swervedriver. Two short, untitled instrumentals, the French titled Maintenant vous pouvez fermer les yeux and the closing NHOH (including a hidden bonus track, yawn!) are further excursions into instrumental postrock, while the remaining material is much more rock oriented, with melodic vocals, regular song structures, and enough guitar reverb to give them that druggy feeling that we liked so much before grunge was taking over.
No Memory Man work well on both bases. Utopium are competent songwriters, and their instrumentation is muscular enough to make their material interesting. Their excursions into postrock are maybe not that original, and sometimes over too soon, but still smartly done in their own way. If the band managed to combine those two separate styles into one cohesive entity in the future, there could be really something grand looming ahead of us. No Memory Man is still a good enough debut with pleasing songs and enveloping atmospheres that will keep you occupied for three quarters of an hour
- Disagreement.net
It will not take you a lot of time to appreciate the production level of this EP. Huge sound, dextrous mix, all this immediately makes you want to know more about it. A Franco-Mexicano-Russian project, Utopium serves a high-up quality pop-rock whilst varying the pleasures. The same voice and musical corps, yet a different result every time. Sombre “We Are” tears your ears up with tortured guitar complaints. Sugar Free has a more classical head-banging flavour to it. Ophelia starts out filled with nostalgia but grows big and powerful. Nimbus Around My Neck begins as a really noisy fast piece that suddenly fades away... just to start all over again! With their brilliantly produced tracks, Utopium have got it all and are sure to be part of the next French pop-rock wave. - Rock Mag n° 13 - Rock Mag
Utopium is still one of the best rated European Bands on Garageband.
http://www.garageband.com/artist/utopiumFR
- GarageBand.com
A terrible, monstrous, and super-powerful atomic bomb. This is what I put into my CD player this month. It is nothing less than one of these miracles that nobody awaited, a sonic hurricane that picked up and swirled me around, tearing my ears up in the process, and an incandescent blow that completely blew my eardrums (…)
…As I put the CD in, the first instrumental, "Deuce", and its progressive build-up made me think: "Here you go, we’ve got our national Mogwai now", while piercing guitar notes kept overdubbing. And then, there came a wall of guitars. Organic, palpable, unheard since Ride’s "Nowhere", and hoped for since My Bloody Valentine, uniform and intangible, thick and warm, as a curtain of fog (...)
…The second track confirmed the hopes that one could place on this band. This was not a remake of a Mogwai-like Godspeed exploding in the sky, nor was it a bitter-sweet suave singing à la Mark Gardener, invoking some sort of Ride-Slowdivian nostalgia. This was full of energy, speed, and rock n’ roll, with a gigantic dose of melodies (…)
…Their scale is international, just as the composition of their band. Tracks such as "Sandstorm" or "Tidal Waves", genuine sonic bombs, are combined with beautiful instrumentals and interludes, monochords, and noisy. The guitar squeals that open "Icarus" are a perfect introduction illustrating Utopium’s tortured sound. The climax comes at the very end. "NHOH", the last track, gets deep into your bowels, fades away, and then comes back to give you the final head butt. The only thing you want to listen to after Utopium is Utopium.
Their sound is perfect, their production is impeccable, the CD sleeve is beautiful and when you give it a listen, there is nothing there to change. It is perfect
- www.indierockmag.com
Discography
"Doubleplusgood" (2009)
"Tourist " (2008) New single, aired already on radio and avalaible on Myspace
« No Memory Man » (2006)
« Persistence » (2003)
« We are » (2001
Photos
Bio
Utopium’s adventure commences in 1998 in Paris when Maxime Petrovski, a Russian singer and guitarist, came to Paris and subsequently formed the band. Playing, at first, traditional guitar rock essentially, the band’s style evolved progressively along with the changes occurring in its line-up. Utopium went to London to do their first serious recording in the spring of 2000. It was co-produced by an English team, Simon Lovelace and Andy Davies, whose input changed the band’s style and outlook and helped them to find an original indie-rock sound that superseded traditional guitar values. It is at this moment that Andres Soto, a Mexican guitarist, joined the band, introducing new arrangements for the songs of the album entitled "We are". His ethereal yet harsh sound strongly contributed to the band’s forging of its current identity. From 2001 to 2003, the band played various prestigious Parisian venues and recorded a new album entitled "Persistance". In that album, Utopium takes a slight post-rock turn and from now on, the tracks lean heavily on ambient guitars. In 2005, Utopium recorded their new and last album to date, “No Memory Man”, which is more atmospheric, and noisier than ever before. In 2006 and 2007, the band had its first tours abroad (Belgium, the Netherlands, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia). Signed by the Belgian indie label “Planet of Sounds”, Utopium starts recording their fourth album on the 20th of April 2008 at Chemical Sound Studios in Toronto assisted by two Canadian producers Dean Marino and Jay Sad. The band will tour in Europe (Denmark, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France) in May-June and in Asia (China and Japan) in September 2008.
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