French indie-pop trio Exsonvaldes, release their highly-anticipated fifth studio album ‘Maps’, the first to be released after over a six-year hiatus. Having met during their engineering studies in Paris, the mathematician rockers have built an identity made of astute tones that exploit their scientific background.

Maps is a concept album that is not only a cartography of their trips, from cities like London or Turin but also a discovery of their musical evolutions. A chronological voyage that starts in the nineties and moves towards the new century but also goes back in time to reference every decade of pop since the seventies. During the band’s formation, twenty-five years ago, the musicians of Exsonvaldes already expressed a strong revulsion against pollution. In Maps, their fifth album, the disgust of an older, wiser trio has turned to furious eco-anxiety.

Keen on preserving the record format, they imagined an A-side that starts with a tragic fact: the future of the planet is in great danger! The track Change states that everything is going to change because nothing ever changes! Then a B-side ends with a farewell to Europe. Good-Bye Europe is a pre-break-up song about England and Europe, prophetic since it was written long before Brexit. French and English songs (Exsonvaldes’ trademark) are filled with tongue-in-cheek humour and irony. Dansé describes the denial that comes with hangovers while Party People blatantly mocks the overindulgence of nights out. In Barbican, with the help of French-English singer Emma Broughton aka Blumi, they enumerate, haiku-style, the ravages of a battered England. The trip doesn’t end there, however. Next stop: Italy, with Torino, a romantic road trip also chosen for the soundtrack of Emily in Paris. What ties ‘Maps’ together is the anxiety at a world on the verge of collapse, a world unaware of its excesses. ‘Change’, ‘Rien Appris’ and ‘Silence & Hyperacusis’ are all songs that ring alarm bells about the environmental crisis. In a mixture of irony, indie pop and anxiety, Maps gives shape to a chaotic vision of today’s world.

The album was written, recorded and produced nearly entirely by the band’s three members. Only the mixing was entrusted to an outside ear, Etienne Caylou (Louise Attaque and Mustang). Spending just over a year writing and recording the record, Exsonvaldes has certainly produced a well-tuned indie-pop gem, ready to find its audience.

The band have previously garnered support from the likes of BBC 6Music, racked up over 3.5million streams across Spotify and had two of their tracks 'Cyclops' and 'Torino' featured in seasons 1 & 3 on Netflix's hit show 'Emily In Paris'. The other single off the Album ‘Party People’ also saw support from the likes of C-Heads and EARMILK. To celebrate the release of Maps the band will be touring throughout France, Spain and Germany in February 2024.