The first time I listened to "Chemicals" was as though I had just run right into the overload of another person and realised that it was just like mine. Olivier Cornu, whose project is Moon construction kit, has transformed something very personal into sound, and you can hear it after every second. It is not merely a song to me, but a three minutes pressure of emotion, stuffed very tight, uncomfortable and sore. His term power-goth-pop is appropriate as soon as it begins as the song alternates between, on the one hand, complete anarchy and on the other, a desire to be alone but not quite silent.
It is dense and dark and the stacked and twisted vocals are broken in an all too familiar manner. They do not sound polished or remote; they even sound like thoughts hitting each other when everything is too loud in your own head. It is made all the more when one realises that Cornu constructed this single handedly. All his details are deliberate, as though he is aware that integrity resides in small, spread out decisions. It is a blend of the indie-rock grit and gothic darkness that creates a place that is heavy and yet somehow safe, such as sitting with feelings that you would not sit with.
It is more nerve-jumping than his previous release, the psychedelic fringes of his first EP or the dreamier sound of his Long John Silver. The creation is even more forceful, yet it is also melodic, which makes me think of the skill of The Cure to strike the right balance between heaviness and beauty.
The most memorable fact is how numbness is treated in "Chemicals". It doesn't glorify it. It makes it out to be draining, as survival. It is quite disturbing, but it is also soothing. This song is a kind of release of confrontation, and it is a point where Cornu sounds more vulnerable, much more desperate and more human than ever.
