LES BATON ROUGE
My Body - The Pistol (Elevator Music)
Reviewed by Alan Wright

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Hailing from Portugal, but residing now in Germany, this peppy combo harkens back to the days of early punk and bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, X-Ray Spex and Kleenex. Their angular, somewhat artsy but aggressive sound might be labeled by lazy music scribes as "post-punk" but anyone with any knowledge or appreciation of 1976-77 punk knows that most stuff deemed "post-punk" was actually just punk when the term encompassed a wider variety of sounds. I always thought it was odd that journalists would call a band like Wire or Joy Division "post-punk" when they were putting out records at the same time as bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Suspiria Franklin, who handles the lead vox, guitar and bongos, has that dramatic Brit-punk singing style that works really well on these tunes. Drummer Corrine Dumas adds more female backing vox, and guitarist James Jacket and bassist Peter Shamble also chime in here and there. Produced and mixed by Tim Kerr in Connecticut, at two different sessions almost a year apart, the sound is a perfect balance of rawness and production. Les Baton Rouge have strongly feminist lyrics, and riot grrrl acts like Bikini Kill have likely been an influence on their sound as well.

© 2004 - Alan Wright