Free-spirited Quebec rocker Jean Leloup has never been one to fall in line. He continues to forge his own path, imagining faraway lands where love and death battle it out, with a flair for the poetic. This all-acoustic ninth album breaks down his sound to the bare essentials: the wolf-man, his six-string, and his rabid imagination. On the title track, he sings of a strange country where people love and forget over a jagged guitar riff. His voice drops to a whisper on the existential “Les goélands” as he awaits a sign as to whether he has really lived. And he makes a case for freeing a caged bird on the percussively strummed “L’oiseau-vitre.” Words to live by, from an artist who has only ever followed his heart.