Les Louanges is Rewriting “Alouette”

Vincent Roberge transforms a Québecois nursery rhyme into his most urgent and politically charged album yet.

By Samuel Albert

Published on April 9, 2026

Vincent Roberge is done playing Clark Kent. At least that’s what he tells us. “It feels good to don my Les Louanges costume again,” the Montréal indie artist says with a boyish smile, speaking to RANGE on the heels of his forthcoming album, Alouette! After stepping away from music for several years, Roberge is easing back into the role that made him one of Québec’s most singular voices. And this time he’s doing it with a bit more clarity, rather than the bombast of 2022’s Crash.

Roberge, the genre-blurring mind behind the one-man musical project Les Louanges, describes the break following his last album as necessary. Time away from the studio gave him space to interrogate not just his sound, but his sense of self. The result is Alouette!, a record that feels less like a comeback and more like a reckoning.

Despite what his stage name may imply (Les Louanges roughly translates to something like “the gospel” in English), Roberge has nothing resembling a God complex.

“I was just a boy with a dream of making it in the music industry,” he recounts, describing his childhood in suburban Québec City and the pivotal move to Montréal over a decade ago to embed himself in the city’s storied music scene.

“The city’s obviously essential to my work,” Roberge says, recalling his daily contemplative walks up Mt. Royal, sometimes “just to say hello” to the mural of Montréal icon Leonard Cohen, while ruminating on the themes that would anchor Alouette!.

Inspired in part by the classic Québecois nursery rhyme, the album (out April 10 via Bonsound) marks a tonal shift. Where earlier work leaned heavily into groove and texture, Alouette! pushes further inward. Its songs wrestle with existential fatigue, political frustration, and the complicated reality of growing older, not just as an artist, but as a person navigating adulthood in an increasingly volatile world.

“Je rêve au jour où j’aurais hate à demain” (I dream of the day I’m excited for tomorrow), Roberge repeats on the outro to album opener “Je confirmer ma presence” (I confirm my presence). The line lands like a confessional sentiment many young adults have likely written down in one form or another over the past five years.

“Am I crazy to be a little turned off by everybody?” Roberge asks when discussing why this album felt urgent to make. Exhausted by what he sees as narcissistic and self-aggrandizing trends dominating the pop charts, he felt compelled to respond to the mood of the moment with something that was both playful and pointed.

“My music will never be played on the radio anyways, so I thought I may as well have some fun with it,” he says of recording Alouette! as a more incendiary, experimental, and openly political project than his previous groove-heavy releases.

Pulling inspiration from ’70s funk, ’90s R&B, and artists like Gorillaz, Curtis Mayfield, Prince, and Leonard Cohen, the album finds Roberge balancing levity with critique. “It’s sort of my announcement that things in Québec, in Canada, and around the world need to change to respond to the hostility of today,” he explains, referencing tracks like “Le journée va être chaude” (The day will be hot), a sharp take on climate complacency and late-stage capitalism, and “Je bouge pas” (I’m not moving), the album’s closer, which leans toward perseverance rather than surrender.

“Yes, this house we share needs renovations, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a home we must learn to live in,” says Roberge. The metaphor extends beyond politics. Even the album cover — an image of Roberge revving up to throw a stone through the window of a ramshackle house — suggests disruption not as destruction, but as a necessary jolt.

The origins of his alias are far less grand. “Sometimes a name is bestowed upon you,” he jokes, explaining that Les Louanges came from teenage stoners rather than divine inspiration. The humility remains intact, even as the music grows more urgent.

“This album’s all about confirming I’m here; confirming we are all here,” he says, framing Alouette! as both personal statement and communal reminder. In a cultural moment driven by virality and trend cycles, Roberge seems more interested in endurance.

As he sings on “GODDAMN!,” a standout track about remaining steadfast amid relentless uncertainty: “Pour le meilleur, pour le pire / C’est déjà un miracle / T’es vivant, tu respires” (For better, for worse, it’s already a miracle, you’re alive, you can breathe).

For Roberge, that miracle is enough to keep showing up — costume and all.