The month of January barely ends that we are already holding one of the very best albums of 2025. protected From Terrenoire, released this Friday, is a marvel of writing, composition and experimentation. It takes up the challenge of being extremely thought out, thoughtful, full of audaries, while remaining accessible to the greatest number.
The duo, formed by the Herrerias brothers from Saint-Etienne, wanted a disc full of “panache”. Like the one shown by Zidane to whom the song God Save Zinédine refers. “He had a singularity in his way of doing things, of playing, of being in the world. He is a celebrated, ambivalent, complex character, advances Raphaël, the elder. With this album, we took risks, as he was taking it on the grounds, to make a good game. ”
“A riding work, sanding”
protectedit’s beautiful text and beautiful sound, whose design started two years ago. The brothers have created around fifty songs and kept fourteen at the end of a long process. “We made multiple versions – around thirty each time – for each titles,” says Théo Herrerias. We worked and reworked each measurement. We sometimes put the structure of one piece on another, or we kept the voice but we started on new agreements. Then two weeks later, we returned to it in part or in whole. It is really a work of refining, sanding. »»
This crafts are also expressed on hotline gorgone et The day everything openedwhere Théo’s voice is unrecognizable. “This is again a production mechanism [le varispeed, une technique permettant d’accélérer une piste vocale]he enlightens. We move it to make it a little more acute, and place it in a world that does not belong to any of the genres. It allows you to open doors, create questions. We try to tickle the curiosity of the public so that it invests in listening to the disc. »»
With the victory of male revelation in 2022, a successful tour, and the popularity of Until my last breathextracted from their first opus published in 2020, The contrary forceswhich affected a large audience by its use for an advertising campaign in Intermarché, the Terrenoire could have tackled this new disc with apprehension.
“A crossing of our time”
“We did not want to work with fear,” says Raphaël Herrerias. We shaped him in a kind of childish joy, without thinking about the impact, without wondering if it could please. We had to get back into a very beginner state, to create in the illusion that we gave birth to the first song. It is in this state of sincerity, which clings to nothing, no expectations, that we can touch. »»
The contrary forces was haunted by the death of their father and confined himself to the intimate. ” For protectedwe have widened the horizon. We wanted to make a map of the world in which we live, take the pulse as a seismograph. The album, in its reliefs, is a crossing of our time, ”describes the pair of choir.
-The fourteen songs are to be listened to as a sound travel book coupled with an exploration of our humanities. Musical oxymorers, the alloy of two contradictory sensations, punctuate the disc. So, The madman in the car Expresses “a joyful fear, because we can dance on this song”. The metaphorical meaning of the words, evoking this driver “which turns right, [qui] Touring a hard right, ”is no doubt and the chalcted rhythm has everything of the perfect hymn of demonstration. “This title is a question, perhaps a fear,” says Raphaël. And also a way of resisting in the face of these powerful characters who seem more and more impressive, like bad film characters. »»
“We choose preservation as central value”
The noise announcing the closure of the metro doors opens Paris, the big citya narrative song that can act as a compass. “She talks about cohabitation, bodies together, the collective,” sums up Raphaël. We hear a lot of speeches of fear, we are hailed that society is polarized, as if we could no longer live together. But what we say in this album is that if we listen to the voice of others, otherness, we see that, in the end, it goes well. »»
« Paris the big cityit is a logbook that tells the different readings that we can have from a territory that we cross, continues Théo. There are so many people, it’s violent, but at the same time, there are beautiful moments, smiles. Everything is ambivalent, everything is contradictory. “Raphaël resumes:” This disc chooses preservation, being protected as much as being the small or small protégé, as a central value, rather than discord and conflict. It is an album, which tries to pass the borders, to ask the question of complexity. Can we continue to move forward together? In fact, we proclaim it: we will have to move forward together. »»
Our music file
This assertion, Terrenoire will strive to make it concretize during its tour, launched in March. “We will stay several days in the cities where we will perform in concert. We will make writing workshops with children, elderly choirs, announces Raphaël. We are going to make small gestures, in fact. They will not change the face of the world, but, they allow us to get up in the morning and tell us, we do our work with dignity, in fact. During the pandemic it was a lot of question of what is essential. I think what is essential is to meet. Exploration is just beginning.
