Absinthe: The French Album

A sequel of sorts to Jacques, Absinthe found Marc Almond offering up covers, in some cases of songs never translated into English before, of various notable French standards and curiosities from the same general era of Jacques Brel’s success in the 1950s and 1960s. Like the earlier album the tribute is definitely sonic in part, but ultimately it’s all about Almond’s uncanny sense of drama and performance on songs like the sassy come-on “Undress Me,” the unnerving psychodrama of “Incestuous Love” and the closing standard “Yesterday When I Was Young.”