Ménage à Trois

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These Are Birthmarks is an amazingly good first offering from local Pretoria band, Ménage à Trois. Beautifully textured in the music as well as the lyrics, this is right up there with the best debut albums I have heard.
Great tunes, fine musicians and superb production notwithstanding, the essential thing about Ménage à Trois is the amazingly creative lyrics and Auriel's warm and sensitive singing style.
The songs are wonderfully gritty and are often a brutally honest look at life, emotions, the human condition and just about everything else .
It is wonderful to find someone unafraid to say what she thinks and tell it like it is. Auriel seems to take her influences from a wide range of musical genres, at times the street poet, at times the balladeer, folky, rocky and funky. On 34th, my favourite song on the album, she even gets very Dylanesque. As the songs are so varied it makes it difficult to place the album in any particular genre.
Perhaps Auriel says it best in the line: "Take it or leave it, I am the best version of me you'll ever find."
Rating: 4/5
- Ettiene Creux: Pretoria News Album of the week

Album cover

“Ménage à Trois is a polished act that leaves you wanting for more. Auriel’s lead vocals are husky and soulful, crooning out lyrical imagery that dances through possible interpretations in your head. Their sound is quirky, attitude-filled, alternative, worldy folk rock. In fact I suspect they fit fairly-comfortably into the anti-folk genre. They’re *the* band to watch while sipping a whisky and mellowing your thoughts while listerning to what real music should sound like.”
- www.52weeks.co.za

“These are Birthmarks expresses the birth of Ménage à Trois into the music industry. As first albums often have scattered concepts, the songs are really only tied together in one way. They are birthmarks to me. The beginnings of great things to come. It's where I come from...what I've seen and what I've learned.”
- Auriel Lefebre

Ménage à Trois – a brief biography
Ménage à Trois is born from the songs and words of talented lyricist Auriel van Zyl. Auriel was joined in 2003, by drummer Jako Loots and soon thereafter by Garth de Meillon. With the threesome completed the unique flavor and creativity that is Ménage à Trois soon began to flourish. Ménage à Trois is an exclusive blend of bass driven funk and folk rock with each of the band members contributing their own initiative to the project. The music transcends many different styles and genres, and draws from an array of different musical influences.

Proving the versatility of these musicians, frequent guest artists are included in Ménage à Trois’ shows: Lani van der Merwe joins the band ..o contributing a raw and classic passion to the music while guitarist Illimar Neitz rips it up on the electric providing poignant guitar riffs and effects. The music is enriched and a whole new dimension is added to the definitive Ménage à Trois sound that supporters have grown to love.

In amongst the music, delicately intertwined and truly poetic are the soulful and inspirational lyrics penned by Auriel herself. These are not mere words but often listeners a completely different perspective as well as genuine emotion. Words that are genuinely brought forth by personal experience and the wisdom that it leaves behind.
Since their start the band has been gigging extensively and are starting to break into other provinces. The band has played in most venues throughout Johannesburg and Pretoria including Tings an’ Times, Cool Runnings, The Bohemian, Back 2 Basix, as well as bigger stages including The White Mountain Folk Festival, Aardklop and three Oppikoppis.
March 2007 marked the successful launch of their debut album, These are Birthmarks.

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