“This is a debut that plays like a retrospective, rich with detail and emotional weight and striking in its ambition.”

                        — Jordan Ruiz, Coast2Coast Sounds

Born of eighteen months of intensive creative collaboration, Chalumeau’s BLUE offers ten genre-defying tracks that explore the full spectrum of love’s complexities and contradictions. From the Afro-Latin rhythms of “Candombe” to the stark political urgency of “No Common Ground,” the collection draws on distinct traditions — ballads, big-band blues, bossa nova, hard-hitting rock, indie, and electronic music — with style choices informing the emotional meaning of each song.

The album is also remarkable for being entirely self-produced, with Bergeron and Rovan together handling all aspects of writing, performing, recording, mixing, and mastering. The process was deeply personal and organic, spurred in part by the couple’s return to Rhode Island after a ten-year absence. As they noted, “there was something about being back in this beautiful ocean state, with so many fabulous musicians, that inspired us to start creating again.” Long walks in nature, personal writing retreats, and time for reflection and revision brought forth an explosion of musical and lyrical ideas that were later honed through months of studio work.

The result is a project that takes you on an exended emotional journey. It begins with “Homecoming,” a ballad about the illusion of finding a home in love, setting the stage for a story that unfolds, like acts in a play, across the 10 tracks. The romance and heartbreak of “Homecoming” give way to the accusation of “Lies”, the rejection of “Candombe,” the infidelities of “Hide,” the special pleading of “No Common Ground,” the elegant revenge of “La Vérité,” and then the simple truth, the grief, of “Blue,” which is the album’s emotional center and turning point. After that, the tone shifts to the resignation of “My Hands Are Tied” and the reconciliation and resilience of “Never Give Up.” And then the final ballad, “You Can Count on Me,” offers a moment of grace and gratitude in a song about what real love looks like,  dedicated to all those people who remain by your side even when life walks away. 

August 2025 saw Chalumeau bringing the full ambition of BLUE to the stage in a debut concert at Rhode Island’s legendary rock club The MET. With an eight-piece band of top local talent, together with some very special guests, the show demonstrated Chalumeau’s ability not just to tell their story but also to command and move a live audience.

Read Cheikh Higgs’s review of the live concert. 

.