OUR DECISIONS

Description

Bad news: Frustration is increasingly living up to its name. You know where it's headed from the very first notes; the Parisian gang isn't here to reinvent the wheel or brew fresh beer, and that's exactly what we hoped for. Sa-tis-fac-tion (sorry). The relative classicism of this sixth album, 'Our decisions', quenches the thirst of fans, whose reputation is well established (and we're not talking about the record bar revenue at La Maroquinerie). Their music is driven by an initial desire complex enough that its expression is never a mere repetition. Frustration doesn't teach the history of music, but that doesn't stop them from knowing very well where they come from. The pillars of Born Bad proudly carry the banner of our bastard post-punk, nurtured on grain, raised in freedom, with slicked-back hair and claws ready to scratch. - - One of the great joys of listening to a band that has had time to know what it wants is that they play together. The keyboards have six strings, the drummer uses a pick, the bass sings, no one is trying to outdo each other, and you can hear it as clearly as you can see it. There are probably plenty of presets on their synths, but Fred Campo must have stripped away what wasn't needed; the result: no lasagna of layers, it's played like a guitar. That's all we ask for, to find in a record what we hear live. - - Frustration, a band that passionately defends the right to keep a cool head—there's a life outside the van—logically has a loyal audience, virgin with a wolf ascendant. If this is your first taste, be confident; the quintet crafts its blades with the know-how of a cutlery shop in Thiers. For the snobs who roll on the floor when it sings in English from the wrong side of the Channel, know that two tracks in French, 'Omerta' and 'Consumés', precisely remind us that Fabrice Gilbert sings in a hybrid language that has just kept the best of both idioms. This allows you to fully savor his acid and straightforward outbursts, which tailor a suit for this 'generation of apathetic fools / fantasizing about rich idiots.' Losing my edge, my ass. - - Produced in-house at Mains d'Oeuvres, pre-mixed by Nicus, the guitarist, mixed by Jonathan Lieffroy, and mastered by Krikor: there has been a slight shift to port since their last album So Cold Streams. The sound is less radically cold wave and seeks a balance closer to the instruments (the guitar plays inside your face, closer it's inside). You'll find some traces of industrial on the drums of 'Riptide', produced like a banger, and sung like new wave. Anne, from the Rouen-based band Hammershøi, came to whisper in German on 'Vorbei', a rare moment of pause in this very intense record. The cardio-heavy drumming of 'Catching Your Eye' recalls the joyful heaviness of 'Shades from the past', an instrumental from their second album, and confirms if it was needed that Mark Adolf forms a formidable duo with Pat Dambrine on bass. - - 'Secular Prayer', which closes the album, reminds us that Frustration is as much a part of Ian Curtis's family as it is of Ian Dury's: it takes a crazy amount of care not to take oneself too seriously with so much success.