Bibi Club - Amaro
Secret City Records
Released on February 27th, 2026
Bibi Club's third studio album, Amaro, is full of unique sounds. Not simply the unique samples, techno beats, and poetic lyrics, but you can also hear the streets, clubs, and community of Montreal, the influences from a lifetime of loving music. You can hear 60’s beat poetry, 90’s synth and grunge guitar, and an old-school techno pulse throughout the whole album. There’s also a bit of 80’s sax to remind us how it feels to stand on the wet pavement under a street light after midnight.
The forceful beat is a constant in the album, reminiscent of the sound of a train on its tracks carrying you home. It holds together the different themes, styles and messages in an uplifting, insistent trail through the album. Darker and more personal than their other two albums, yet somehow uplifting with the overlying theme “I want to love, I want to live”. The carefully layered cacophony of styles and eras is like rifling through a bin of used records at a garage sale and playing them all at once. Nicolas Basque expertly layers sounds and samples like a collage. The unifying presence of lead singer Adèle Trottier-Rivard's voice has a soft, sweet, and breathless texture. Its difference forces you to consider her lyrics and their relationship to the sound.
“Amaro,” the title track of the album, draws you in with a heartbeat-like bassline and an energetic guitar loop. The title track from the album also contains its first mention of the recurring theme from the album. Adèle sings “La mort et la vie” (death and life) and “ le cœur est une lieu qui ne meurt jamais ” (the heart is a place that never dies). The word “amaro” is “bitter” in Italian, but when I think of an amaro, I think of the bittersweet herbal liqueur. It feels very appropriate for an album about life and love and death, the true bittersweetness of life. The dark synths and deep basslines underneath the soft, delicate vocals of Adèle’s voice are as bitter and sweet as its namesake.
My favourite track, “George Sand,” comes in as the eighth song from the album. I can only assume it is named after the nineteenth-century French novelist, known for her own radicalism, independence, and refusal to conform, which echoes the discordant and unconventional samples and the chaotic introduction of the saxophone over halfway through the song.
I listened to this album on repeat to write this review, and the more I listened to it, the more I found myself drawn into the experience in its entirety. It’s a cohesive album with multiple truly excellent tracks and a powerful message. Fans of bands like Depeche Mode, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Saint Étienne, I think, will appreciate it right from the first listen. In truth though, I’d say the third and fourth listens are where you start to see the complete vision. It feels like a well-thought-out and considered work, intended to be listened to as a whole. Even if you aren’t a fan of Greek mythology and the river Styx or nineteenth century French novels, there’s something here even on the surface that I think most people will enjoy. For me it’s an ideal album for late-night walks through downtown streets, under the lights, watching the people pass you by with time to think about love and life and death.
