French Duo Metro Verlaine releases new album
Following ‘Pop Sauvage’, which marked the duo’s tenth anniversary, Metro Verlaine are back with ‘RODEORAMA’, a new album conceived as an inner road movie. Blending rock, new wave, dark pop and fantastical Americana, Raphaëlle and Axel transform periods of loss, disorientation and transition into a bold, romantic and deeply cinematic album.
Photo Credit: Lao Ségur
Written and composed in the depths of winter 2025, RODEORAMA emerged from a period of transition and mourning, driven by a desire to express themselves in a new way and to break free from the gloom. The duo explores new soundscapes without ever straying from the raw energy that has been at the heart of their sound since their debut. The album thus oscillates between melancholy and hope, introspection and the desire to move forward
Recorded in the spring of 2025 at the Quiksilver studio in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where the band shut themselves away for three weeks with their musicians, RODEORAMA took shape through experimentation, between long days in the studio and final lyrics penned on the beach, sometimes between surfing sessions. The album was recorded with Arthur Guégan, Rémy Duprat and Geoffrey Batard, the band’s live sound engineer.
From ‘Rodéo’, which evokes a loss of control and addiction set to a 60s beat, to ‘Dernier jour’, written whilst mourning a loved one, the album navigates through turbulent times as well as moments of light. The tracks tackle addiction, trauma, femininity, the passions of youth and our relationship with memories, charting a fragmented yet coherent journey.
One of the album’s highlights, “Jaguar” plunges the listener into the world of a nocturnal road movie, blending electric guitars, fuzz, new wave and melancholy. Driven by a hypnotic organ, the track weaves together childhood memories of the 1990s and surrealist imagery, in a track designed just as much for dancing as for driving through the night.
RODEORAMA, Metro Verlaine have released an album that is both sensitive and wild, perfect for accompanying departures and homecomings, nights that drag on and long journeys. An album for driving at night, facing the vertigo, and pressing on regardless.
