PureVolume

AqME is a group apart. Apart in its state of mind, apart in its attitude, apart in its sound.
Often against the flow, often radical in its choices. Always upright. Immutable.

In 1999, AqME records its first demo, University of Nowhere, six months after its formation. Two years later, Charlotte joins the group, matters became serious, and AqME shifts to the next gear.

For its first album, Sombres Efforts, the group does not choose the easy way out. Without the support of a label, the AqMEs leave for Sweden to lock themselves up in a studio with Daniel Bergstrand (Meshuggah, In Flames). Behind closed doors, the musicians are still able to deliver a strangely vast disk. Upon their return, they continue to mark their autonomy by signing with the independent Label At(h)ome.

Sombres Efforts is released on the 10th of September 2002, and through the drive of concerts, settles itself into the French Rock Scene. AqME plays all over the place, all the time: 90 shows of hard work and sweat, with as final, a show blazing in front of 10,000 people at the Eurockennes Festival of Belfort.

A few months later, and many miles down the road, the urge to record already takes them to the stomach. AqME is a group that composes rapidly because of need, all the while imposing upon itself constant quality. Return to Sweden in 2004 for Polarods & Pornographie, a second opus one notch deeper lyrically, but more aerial to the senses. More open to the exterior world, more feverous, the album marks a true progression on behalf of the group. A progression that will be confirmed on stage where AqME grows to disproportional amplitudes, turning entire arenas inside out everywhere it passes, filling the Elyse-Montmartre (huge concert hall in Paris). In the concert hall, Nicolas Sirkis (Indochine) is on the balcony. He has been following the group for quite a while and has invited them to perform on his itinerant event, the X-Festival, in 2003.

For its third album, AqME changes everything. Collaboration with Daniel Bergstrand has reached its limits, and the group decides to remain in Paris and to work with Steve Prestage (Black Sabbath, Peter Gabriel, as well as De Palmas).

La Fin des Tempsis recorded in thirty days, spread across a period of three months in totally new conditions. The group is no longer withdrawn onto itself. Everyone goes home at night, when they are not performing at the Printemps de Bourges, Solidays, or the Furia Sound Festival. Every hiatus allows for a look back upon what has been produced, every concert reinforces little by little the desire to compose the best album possible.

The relations with Prestage are simple, AqME feels more at ease. And yet, this disk is no less somber, no less heavy. Quite the contrary. La Fin des Temps is in essence inspired by an enigma: the end, death. The death of everything, of the human (Rien au monde), of ignorance (Une Vie Pour Rien), of lightheartedness (La Fin des Temps), of love (Une Dernire Fois), of dreams (Des Illusions). The acceptance that all has an end, as hard as it may be to swallow. Around this subject, almost as if carried by its own weight, the entire group united itself over certain lyrics. The first single, Pas Assez Loin, establishes itself into this mood all the while putting in value the puzzling facility of the group to spread these unavoidable and catchy pop melodies. Thrown as fodder to fans at a few shows, the title has already proven its immediate efficiency.

If certain artists need to isolate themselves, to darken themselves in order to create something beautiful and sad, AqME is not of those. This is the difference between being and seeming. Between being in a state and putting oneself into a state. AqME does not put itself into a state. AqME does not pretend. Unafraid of its beliefs. Even if this means increased deviation from the norm, and of what is now expected from a French Rock group.

An attitude that echoes that of Indochine, to whom AqME has offered the song, Aujourdhui je pleure, for their new album. The two groups meet in studio in their fullest number to record it, in live wire.

New producer, new collaboration, new method of work, La Fin des Temps could well be a new start. After generating and reinforcing a solid core of unconditional fans, AqME readies itself to conquer a new audience. Never deviating, always truthful to the universe and the identity it has built, the group returns. More than ever somber and strong.