Erei Cross was born in 2019, when the two founding members with a mutual passion for rock and metal music, Adrien Grousset and Laetitia Finidori, decided to join forces and work on a new project. The two come from different backgrounds in music scene; while Adrien is renowned for his work with Hacride and Carpenter Brut, this is Laetitia’s first experience as a recording artist, and she was keen to tell us a little more about the band.
“Adrien already had his foot in the music industry, with Carpenter Brut and Hacride; my experience was really poor in comparison, but I have a passion for music since childhood. I always sang a lot and played piano, but never as part of a band. . . so it was a dream come true when Adrien, my friend for nearly 20 years, asked me to make some music with him. He sent me six tracks and I started composing my own singing lines and lyrics for the first time. I will thank him every day for the rest of my life for that!”
In the first year of their existence, Adrien worked on a couple of songs and six of them were recorded and released as an EP entitled The Widow in 2021. Now in 2023, Erei Cross returns with their first full-length album The widow and the others, a work that offers an eclectic, dark and engaging soundscape that takes inspiration from the esoteric and symbolic imagery of modern witchcraft but focuses on contemporary themes like feminism and inclusivity.
“The band name Erei Cross is actually a semi-palindrome – read backwards it spells ‘witch’ in French [sorcière],” Laetitia continues. “The album is split into two sections: The Widow and The Others. The Widow is heavier and darker, with The Others relating more to my world and reality. In both parts we touch on themes of feminism and women’s rights, grief, anxiety (both global and personal) but also the struggle to overcome adversity for minorities like LGBTQI+ and their fight for justice.”
Erei Cross’ music floats between heavy rock, goth, electronic and alternative and it’s almost impossible to describe it in a single genre; yet throughout the eleven songs on the album (four of which feature in our live session video premiere) influences of Queens of The Stone Age, Royal Blood, A Perfect Circle and even P J Harvey come to mind.
“Adrien is much more focused on the 90’s whereas I prefer the 80’s, which allows us to draw inspiration from lots of different genres. I only speak for myself, but my influences are more like something coming out of my guts, my emotions, an impulse, something that touches us and what I live and feel at this moment.”
The widow and the others was released in May 2023 via Klonosphere and can be purchased and downloaded HERE.
