Les Thugs
Nineteen Something
Virgin

Will they finally be famous? This is the question I asked myself when I learn that the new album of "Les Thugs" is released on a major: Virgin. Take care! I don't say that you necessarily make a good album if you record it for a major, but this allows a better distribution of your record.

So discover this group and their new album, the seventh. Les Thugs are a French group (Angers) and started their road to success in April 1983, with five members including the singer P. Brix. Then they were four members (June 83 - june 88): E. Sourice (guitar/vocal), T. Ménard (guitar), C. Sourice (drums) and G. Chabaud (bass), replaced by P.Y. Sourice (bass) in June 88. Musically, we can tell that Les Thugs make "rock melodic" songs, even if their music is less and less violent and more and more structured. One only has to listen to Radical Hystery (!), their first album released in 1986 and compare it to Nineteen Something, released in November 1997, to see the differences. After Radical Hystery, they released Electric Troubles (1987), a mixing of seventies' punk and sixties' melodies, then Still Hungry came out in September 1989, which gave them a growing recognition outside France. Still Hungry contained an amalgam of furious guitars, fast tempos and melodious chords, a mixture that gave us the magnificent IABF (april 1991) - and the great I Love You So - for the first time released on American and Japanese labels. Then As Happy As Possible, recorded in USA (Hanzsek Audio Studio, Seattle), followed by the great and dark Strike (January 1996). It's the first album recorded in Black Box Studio (see below), as Nineteen Something was in November 1997.

After the first listening, we can say that it sounds like a "Thugs' album"! But we always appreciate the violent rhythms (Henry's Back, Never Work Anymore, La Basta, Il Gruppetto, Soon), mixed with "hit tracks" (Side By Side, I Was Dreaming, Take Me Away) and with great rock melodies (Defeated, A Chance, Magic Hour). And don't forget the usual instrumental track (While I'm Waiting) and the surprising and very calm track (Les Lendemains Qui Chantent), which is sung in French (their second French song ever - the first one was Allez Les Filles from Strike).

In fact, this album is a summary of the discography of Les Thugs. This group again confirms their talent.

Contact: 7 mail de la PREFECTURE, 49100 Angers / tel.: 02.41.88.19.82
Radical Production

PS:
Black Box: established in May 1993 near Angers in France (Noyant-La-Gravoyère), by Iian Burgess who has worked with Big Black, Ministry and Naked Raygun, and French groups like Parabellum and Les Thugs...

Copyright © 1997 Patrick Dubail