With Smectal, everything starts with Monsieur A. The guitarist brings his riffs, his ideas, his moods of the moment; the band listens, feels and arranges, then Monsieur R., the singer, adds the words. Usually rather serious thoughts handled with tongue-in-cheek humour: offbeat is what the quartet loves, in music, in lyrics and even in its view of the world.

On Restful Oceans, the approach was different. The musical themes didn’t lend themselves to fooling around, quite the opposite: a strong taste of introspection, a darker shade, already noticeable on recent songs such as Metaphore or Creepy. While writing, Monsieur R. heard in it everything that speaks to him right now: Gojira, Zeal & Ardor, one of his great favourites, “but also something really combative”. True to their love of “weird structures”, the band smash everything up as soon as a song gets too simple, the better to deconstruct it.

The result wanders from one atmosphere to another while remaining narrative: “the story of a guy the world capsizes, until he finds the light deep down at the bottom”. A story that goes beyond the personal, as Monsieur R. explains: “I think that socially, politically and on many levels, that’s where we are, hitting rock bottom to rise back up.” The latest song the band has written, it is also, by its singer’s own admission, his favourite, “clearly the most sensitive”.

Restful Oceans appears on Greatest Hits (of Your Life), Smectal’s second EP, out on 30 October 2026 after the single Sombritude, released in the spring. A “best of” of life told backwards, “the success story turned upside down”, over four tracks. Since Monsieur L. joined on drums, the sound has become more brutal and more percussive: “We’re done with the in-between: we play Metal, thrash, sometimes punk, often something else, but Metal.”

About the band

An unidentified musical object, metal but not only, Smectal draws epileptically from every genre, starting with thrash and punk. The story began in early 2023 with a chance meeting in a circus show, La Caravane des Songes, between Monsieur A., aerial acrobat and guitarist, and Monsieur R., barker and singer. Circus performers, clowns and actors before being musicians, they spent twenty years on the streets and under big tops before admitting that their career belonged in metal. Hence two ambitions: embracing an offbeat stage presence, and music that allows itself everything and holds nothing back. “Serious concerts served by silly musicians.”

The band now brings together Loïc Arnauld (guitars), Jauffrey Rafaneau (vocals), Guillaume Heiser (bass, formerly of Mortelles Paillettes and Big Delta) and Théo Lévis (drums, formerly of Iron Lungs and Underground Therapy), the latter two trained, and twisted, in music conservatories. As influences, Smectal name Mr. Bungle, Psykup, Lofofora, System of a Down, Coroner, Anthrax, Gojira, Zeal & Ardor, Ultra Vomit, Svinkels and Snot. And rest assured: the silliness will carry on on stage.

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