Since playing cover versions of nineties grunge hits together for fun during their engineering studies – Martin was at l’École Polytechnique, Antoine trained as a sound engineer at Louis Lumière and Simon has a master’s degree in artificial intelligence – the mathematician rockers have built an identity made of astute tones that exploit their scientific background. They are the architects of a pop music both fluid and complex that explores all the facets of rock, French touch and, of course, the clean lines of the 90s indie scene. Maps is not only a cartography of their trips, from cities like London or Turin, but also a discovery of their musical evolutions. A chronological voyage that starts in the nineties and moves towards the new century but also goes back in time to reference every decade of pop since the seventies. In their early days, about twenty-five years ago, when their identity as a band was only starting to form, the musicians of Exsonvaldes already expressed a strong revulsion against pollution. In Maps, their fifth album, the disgust of an older, wiser trio has turned to furious eco-anxiety.