‘That’s how we found each other, To remember what we have lost, To contemplate the remains, A sky filled with stars, Scattered ashes encircling ruins from other times, Scavengers fly over decaying bodies’ (ماذا تبقّى / Remains)

À Qui La Liberté? (To Whom Does Freedom Belong?) is the question posed by Uzu on this, their second album.  It proves an emotionally charged interrogation as they plunge into a bleakly allusive exploration of memory, loss, betrayal, and isolation.  To be free is to feel belonging, a state of being ever more out of reach in a polarised world that seeks to actively ferment insecurity and division.

Uzu’s darkly melodic post-punk evocatively envelopes and amplifies this deep-seated sense of unease.  The taut austerity of their delivery gives space to both the locked-in, propulsive rhythm section and the mournfully sinuous melodies of the guitar in equal measure.  Montreal-based, the band include members of the Algerian and Colombian diaspora among their ranks, the former revealing itself in the impassioned, quavering Arabic vocals.

What emerges is an album that is haunted by a sense of forlorn desolation, an exhaustion at fighting to achieve an equilibrium that is seemingly beyond reach.  Not an acceptance of defeat, but rather a recognition of what must be endured.  This tableau of melancholic precision is vividly embodied by the bass propelled agitation of لا تسألني (Do Not Question Me), the remorseless escalation of في خطر (Endangered), and the seething intensity of أختنق (I Suffocate).