Things would seem to be going well for Barbara Pravi. Having represented her country in May's Eurovision Song Contest, the French singer/songwriter won second place in the competition with her song 'Voila'—a standalone single that has since gone on to secure Platinum status.
With the release of her debut long-player—the excellent On N'enferme Pas Les Oiseaux—she cements her position not only as one of French pop's most talented exponents but, indeed, as the author of one of the most distinctive and refreshing pop albums to hit shelves in years. Soulfully performed and well-written, On N'enferme Pas Les Oiseaux boasts the compulsive immediacy of all the best pop, whilst managing in the same breath to command a certain distinguished subtlety that sets Pravi out as an artist with a clear creative vision.
Though her songs are frequently subdued, they never feel dull; indeed, there's enough compositional dynamism here to engage the listener throughout the record's near-forty minute runtime—and, when Pravi does offer one of her debut's periodic ebullient pop salvos, she does so with a deft hand that never once undermines On N'enferme Pas Les Oiseaux's subtler excursions.
Issued by Wrasse Records and Universal Music France, the vinyl edition of On N'enferme Pas Les Oiseaux appears as a sturdy slab of heavyweight black wax. The LP feels great in hand and sounds even better; dynamically mastered, the album's auditory footprint is entirely befitting of Pravi's subtle artistic ambitions, bringing her engaging voice to the fore without neglecting the instruments that back it. The pressing itself is similarly excellent, offering the listener a minimal noise floor bearing only a few sporadic and unobtrusive instances of surface noise on a record that, in the case of our copy, is entirely free of the warping that can at times appear even on records hot off the presses.
Packaged in a standard-width, non-gatefold cover, On N'enferme Pas Les Oiseaux presents a portrait of the artist on its front cover, with the standard copyright information and track-listing on the back cover. Compared to some of 2021's more luxuriant releases, the presentation here is perhaps a little prosaic—and it would have been nice to have seen the barcode attached to a sticker on the shrinkwrap, rather than printed directly onto the back cover—but, overall, this is still a competently packaged title.
The inclusion of a printed paper inner sleeve is also welcome, although listeners would be well-advised to sleeve the record in a polylined inner for safekeeping. In a year where many of pop's most esteemed figures have issued long-awaited follow-ups to beloved back-catalogue titles, Barbara Pravi has, with On N'enferme Pas Les Oiseaux, gone about the business of making one of the year's very best pop albums—and certainly its best debut.
