AUJOURD’HUI MADAME – Les Hommes Modernes (Best Kept Secret)
This is a first for the label – a French band. They hail from Paris, and to be honest the only give-away to their origin is the fact that the lyrics are in French. Musically they could come from either the UK or America, and they have obviously taken their influences from pop and rock groups from those countries. ‘Les Hommes Savent Pourquoi’ starts promisingly,with an excellent power-pop song, featuring a good vocal performance, a catchy chorus and beefy production. This is carried straight on to the next track ‘Deux Etoiles’, while ‘Dans La Cuisine’ has even more of a rock feel to it, and some prominent and well-played organ-work. ‘Un Singe En Hiver’ has a great guitar intro very reminiscent of bands like Green On Red, while ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Nerd’ is the only song sung in English. ‘Ma Verite’ ends the side with some fine harmony pop, and although you don’t really hear him it also features The Undertones Damian O’Neill on guitar and distorted organ. Side two opens with a good rocker in ‘Confessions D’un Homme Moderne’, and is closely followed by the country-rock overtones of ‘1972’, before the band rock out again on ‘Le Don Du Ciel’, ending the song with some hard rocking guitar. O’Neill makes another appearance on ‘Les Idiots’, and this time his guitar picking does add something to the song, and the album closes with the cool jazz-like stylings of ‘L’Ivresse’, which also features some excellent guitar-work. I was quite pleasantly surprised at just how good this album was, and the fact that most of the songs were in a language that I do not understand did not hamper my enjoyment at all. One of the best tapes of this batch.