Do androids still dream of electric sheep...? In France, in rock circles, the 2000s garage revival, Strokes, Libertines, and other French imitations labeled 'baby rockers,' were heavily criticized for being more plastic than militant, for not living up to their slim-fit, black, wank-inducing packaging in their content. With all due respect to the creators of these fashion phenomena, you don't play punk rock to impress haute couture fashion shows; if you claim to be an heir to "No Future," you need to have rage or at least some grit. This is the case with The Fabulous Sheep, who not only master all the codes of post-punk rock but also embrace in English their conviction of the necessity of an indignant youth international. Well, it must be said that they come from Béziers, Bob's town, a French Twin Peaks where they met in high school. As early as 2016, they released a first EP, 'Kids are Back,' followed by a 1st album in 2019. They played hundreds of concerts; they're as raw as a pint of Bitter. And then came 2020, a pajama year, spent knitting amps to flesh out the sound of basses and saxes, guitars and snare drum hits. That's also how they caught our eye, with the 'Satellite' music video, released in early October, where T Soulairol, P Berini, C and J Pernet, and G Ducellier confined themselves in prisoner pajamas, expressing their frustration with a 2.0 world now accessible only on screen. 'Social Violence' is the title of this second album, a post-apocalyptic record where, not without humor, the five musicians encourage us to react to the numbness of the world, a future Blade Runner. "We fight," the first screech of these 11 tracks, drives home the nail of survival with a dizzying drumbeat. Short tracks, two or three minutes as it should be to respect the genre's effectiveness, with the exception of "Mediterranean Cemetery," a condensed text for five minutes of tragic drowning set to a slow tempo. Migrant bodies gently washed up on the beach, "the sea is their cemetery, welcome to the 21st century..." - - The sheep are electric but also eclectic, because there isn't just one rock in this album; we're not exclusively punk, new wave, or garage. The choices serve the lyrics, and winks to classics jostle each other, like with The Clash, to serve anarchy, the blasphemous "Believe in god!" RISE UP PEOPLE! How can you believe in God? We savor Jim Diamond's touch (producer for The White Stripes and The Sonics) on "Parasite" and "Dogs," American alternative at its most effective, accompanied by their clips which remind us of the best moments of quirky DIY videos from the 90s. For the rest of the album, Arbre E Saldana and Fabulous Sheep offer us an equally polished production, thought out in the studio to better unleash chaos live. Because if there is one message to take away from this album, it's that we'll have to fight not to become androids!
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