Indila – Dernière Danse

Pour l’Amour…

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[5.67]Iain Mew: Last time we were covering a last dance it was Claire Maguire’s, which is not a bad comparison for both its vocal style and its ballad-with-beats nature. It’s how the arrangement approaches that proposition which is the unique strength of “Dernière Danse”, using its spartan beginnings to make the drops of the drums and the operatic backing vocals sound earth-shattering.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Adila Serdaia has been hopping about the commercial circles of French hip-hop and R&B for the past couple of years, spreading a glossy sound not unlike Skylar Grey’s, with a formula of treacly dramatics and booming inspira-rock production solidly working its magic. “Derniere Danse” finds Serdaia doing something far more interesting with her tried-and-tested formula: denying the listener of an easy ride. The drums linger in the background so she can deliver an influx of operatic moves, and when they finally announce themselves, it’s to push the free-falling angst to the next level. Where her other credits imagine hip-hop with the aggression souped out of its DNA, here she turns the torch song to thumping mania, wailing and wild and rewarding. (The Black-M remix dissipates the tension but brings the aggressive drums along with it. Advances in both directions.)
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Cédric Le Merrer: I like how her Arabic-influenced tremolos leads easily into an old Parisian chanson réaliste mode when she sings “dans tout Paris”, but beyond that small “yay cultural diversity” moment, the arrangement mixes together the worst in cheap French pop and hip-hop.
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Anthony Easton: A tiny bit of dance music leavens a laconic text, intending to be seductive; it mostly just floats along reminding you of better songs by better singers (Françoise Hardy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot, PJ Harvey, Françoiz Breut).
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Crystal Leww: The beginning of this track is deceptive; I expected something a little more twee than what it turned out to be. The vocal is totally committed to the drama, but the real star here is that propulsive beat that doesn’t even kick in until the 1:40 mark.
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Alfred Soto: Ideal opening credits grabber for teen dream movie adaptation of an Alexandre Dumas novel directed by Baz Luhrmann, complete with kick drum at 1:40. 
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David Sheffieck: This starts out so mannered, the world’s politest cabaret pop, and then the church bells drop in with the bass and take it to a place that’s almost absurdly over-the-top. Indila seems to have never met an instrument or backing vocal without thinking it could bring along a friend or three, and the bizarre, cathartic party “Dernière Danse” turns into is proof that sometimes that’s the best attitude to have.
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Brad Shoup: The Gotye creep is accentuated with such insistent sonics, led by Indila’s scale-winding, probably computer-aided vocals. Even the kick sounds like Scott Walker punching a carcass. But think the master would blanche at the vinyl runoff. Before that, though, it’s industrial-strength bombast.
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Scott Mildenhall: “Rockefeller Street” gone moody. There’s little scene-setting and no hint of resolution, only Indila trapped in abstract misery, as if in a Flake advert with only Snickers at hand — distressing.
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