As Marie Davidson's music progressively became more club-focused throughout the 2010s, she spent more time on the road, lugging her gear to countless venues and festivals via constant red-eyed flights. Her sharply focused 2018 full-length Working Class Woman detailed how her exhaustive schedule was taking its toll on her physical and mental health through cathartic and motivational spoken word tracks as well as frantic, knotty electro instrumentals. It was easily her most acclaimed work yet, ranking in numerous year-end lists and scoring a huge, enduring club hit with the cheeky single "Work It," which earned a Grammy nomination thanks to its remix by Soulwax. Having already named an album Adieux au Dancefloor, Davidson announced her absolute retirement from club music in 2019. She formed the trio L'Œil Nu with frequent collaborators Pierre Guerineau (her husband and partner in the duo Essaie Pas) and Asaël R. Robitaille (aka Bataille Solaire) with the intention of writing pop-inspired songs, drawing from formative influences like Fleetwood Mac, Billie Holiday, and French soundtracks. "Renegade Breakdown," the opening title track to the trio's first record, is the closest Davidson comes to revisiting her older work, making snarky declarations like "There are no money makers on this record/This time I'm exploring the loser's point of view" and "The uglier I feel, the better my lyrics get" over guitar-driven horror-disco beats and slappy synth-bass. "Worst Comes to Worst" is the album's only other disco-friendly cut, with diced hard rock guitar riffs and acidic synths outfitting Davidson's lyrics of emotional topsy-turviness. The dark, autumnal folk of "Center of the World (Kotti Blues)" and nostalgic chanson "La Ronde" lead into the defiant synth pop of "C'est parce que j'm'en fous," one of the album's most sophisticated productions. The jazzy, brush-drummed lament "Just in My Head" continues touching on themes of tour-bound loneliness and disenchantment with the music scene, and the performing arts industry in general. The hallucinatory, cinematic sound design and poetic lyrics of the Karen Carpenter-inspired "Lead Sister" are fascinating, but other tracks, such as the gentle acoustic ballad "My Love" and the sluggish, dramatic "Back to Rock," drag on for too long. Even though Renegade Breakdown intentionally lacks the club energy that drove much of Davidson's best-known material, it's at least as inventive and exploratory. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi

1		Renegade Breakdown
2		Back to Rock
3		Worst Comes to Worst
4		Center of the World (Kotti Blues)
5		La Ronde
6		C'est Parce Que J'm'en Fous
7		Just in My Head
8		Lead Sister
9		My Love
10		Sentiment

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