We launched Score A/V nearly 10 years ago (yes, it’s already been a decade…), and ever since, we’ve consistently filled our pages with musical discoveries and confirmations of all kinds—especially in the first couple of years.
And yet, we constantly miss out on countless releases, which is precisely why we introduced these recurring “catch-up sessions” on the site—dedicated to revisiting overlooked gems and notable releases from across the musical spectrum.
There’s no excuse for not having covered De Mal En Pire earlier, especially given how regularly we spotlight the Francophone and Anglophone Canadian scenes (see: Atsuko Chiba, APES, À l’Ombre d’Héméra, MILANKU…). We’re finally making up for that oversight—about a year after the release of their album Sã Mo, available in CD and digital formats as a fully self-produced project.
This record partly draws its inspiration from Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa—a painting that transcends representation to depict an odyssey of drift, isolation, and resilience. Rather than offering a faithful reinterpretation, the album captures the spirit of the work, playing with metaphor and open-ended interpretation.
Even the title—Sã Mo, echoing wordplay such as “cent mots,” “sans maux,” “cent maux,” and “sans mot”—reflects a delicate tension between clarity and ambiguity, meaning and abstraction. It’s a fitting expression of the emotionally charged post-hardcore that defines the sound of this Sherbrooke-based band from Québec.
The result calls to mind the sonic backdrop of bands like Aussitôt Mort (aka Mort Mort Mort), Deftones, Pelican, PSYCHONAUT, Posetta, and The Ocean—available both in the vocal version above, or as an instrumental-only version just below.