BATTRE CAMPAGNE

Almost three years after their first album, Debile Menthol returned to the studios to record their second (and last) album with a slightly reduced line-up, being only a septet by then, but surprisingly with such a large group, all seven were around since the first album. Musically speaking, Debile Menthol's music is just as crazy as before (if not even more so), certainly more demented and vigorous and chaotic, sometimes approaching dissonance. The album is also much more sung, and the vocals are much fun (they used an outside lyricist) if you understand French. The album is much faster and synthesized than its predecessor, sometimes reaching post-punk speed like XTC, Squeeze or The Knack, but being much more complex and often changing throughout one number, a bit like a Zappa tune.

The vocal bits are often grotesque, inducing a sense of lack of seriousness, but this does not affect the music too much, a bit as if Zappa's crazy vocals would've stopped you from enjoying the rest of his music. Only the closing Cul De Sac seems to stand a bit out of the rest of the album as it sounds like early Univers Zero somber acoustic modern classical music. While this album is probably more complex, it seems that in the long range, it was less influential than its predecessor. Probably best to start with their debut, rather than this one;