I'm naturally inclined towards any band who choose to call themselves The Psychotic Monks. Particularly if they hail from Saint-Ouen, a suburb in the North of Paris. And call their latest album Pink Colour Surgery. And most of all make one hell of a row.
Their choosing of the name Psychotic Monks indicates that the band know their musical past and so very well might know their future. Theirs is a very Punk name in all of the very best respects indicating they might be aware of their Monks and their Count 5s and probably what came afterwards. MC5s, Televisions, Pere Ubus, Saints and so on and so forth.
A cursory listen to Pink Colour Surgery. reveals that they're well aware of John Lydon too. Particularly after he formed Public Image Limited which is a highly sensible departure point for them where he's concerned rather than the slightly more obvious stuff. I set off into the heart of this record fairly confident I was in for a very good time.
And so it proves. Not everything is wholly to my tastes but I never really like things when they turn wholly dark, minimal and repetitive as things do frequently here. That doesn't mean I don't know a good thing when I come across one.
Psychotic Monks understand what a lot of the newly garlanded British Post Punk breed do not. That there is more to that much abused term than The Fall, Gang of Four and Can. PiL, The Pop Group and Industrial Noise for starters.
And all sung in English with an English accent that many actual English people, would die for. A splendid record. And with the latest from En Attendant Ana coming up soon, surely not the last great French album of the Winter.
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