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ARTIST
TITLE
Our Decisions
FORMAT
LP
LABEL
CATALOG #
BORNBAD 172LP
BORNBAD 172LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
3/29/2024
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LP version. The relative classicism of Frustration's sixth album, Our Decisions, quenches the thirst of fans whose reputation is well established. Their music is driven by an initial desire that is sufficiently complex that its expression is never a repetition. Frustration doesn't teach music history, but that doesn't mean they don't know where they come from. One of the great joys of listening to a band that's had time to figure out what it wants is that it plays together. The keyboards have six strings, the drummer has a mediator, the bass sings, no one's pulling their punches, and it shows. No doubt there are plenty of presets on his synths, but Fred Campo had to rip out what wasn't being used, and the result: no lasagna of layers, it's played like a scraper. If this is your first knife, be confident: the quintet crafts its blades with the savoir-faire of a Thiers cutlery factory. For snobs who roll on the floor when English is sung on the wrong side of the Channel, two tracks in French, "Omerta" and "Consumés," remind listeners that Fabrice Gilbert sings in an interlanguage that has kept the best of both idioms. It's the perfect way to savor his acid, no-holds-barred rants, which cut a swath through this "generation of apathetic truffles/fantasizing about assholes full of money." Produced in-house at Mains d'Oeuvres, premixed by guitarist Nicus, mixed by Jonathan Lieffroy, with Krikor on mastering: there's been a bit of a shift to port since their last album, So Cold Streams. The sound is less radically cold wave, and seeks a balance close to the instruments (the guitar plays inside your face, closer is in). There are traces of Indus on the drum skins of "Riptide," tunnel produced like a banger, and sung like new wave. Anne, from the Rouen combo Hammershøi, sings in German on "Vorbei," a rare moment of pause in this very intense record. The cardio-packed drums of "Catching Your Eye" recall the joyful drone of "Shades from the past," an instrumental from their first album, and confirm, if confirmation were needed, that Mark Adolf forms a formidable tandem with Pat Dambrine on bass. "Secular Prayer," which closes the album, confirms that Frustration are as much in the Ian Curtis family as they are in the Ian Dury family: it takes great care not to take themselves so seriously with such success.
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