Frakture – “Check Point” CD review
This release of one of the greatest French post-punk bands of the late 70’s-early 80’s you’ve probably never heard of, was out five years ago, in 2004, by “Westsound” label and mostly was ignored. And this review of this release is a kind of a try to improve the situation. “Check Point” consists of 18 songs, recorded from 1979 to 1982 and its stuff has incredibly vast musical range from post-punk / and new/cold wave to some punk’77/hardcore. It’s remarkable that Frakture doesn’t belong and wave as “school”, they were one of the first who started to play this kind of music in the distant 1977, having only some rumors and echoes of the (post) punk boom in other countries. But in general, and very approximately, Frakture can be called a kind of that middle which balances Dead Kennedys and Marquis de Sade.
The release doesn’t have a chronological order, but during listening to “Check Point”, the sound becomes more wild and raw, so a listener can notice such punk-sounding “dirty” and cynic hits as “I Hate Ya” or “Guy” instead of “soft”, but driven “Sans Visage”, “”Jungfrau”…. The release is filled with hits, which actually sound very different, partly due to using a language (German, French or English). For example, it absolutely can’t be imagined if “Die Sackgasse” and “Wasserstoff Baby” were sung on any other language except German, this language out down its roots in the most original way it could. On the contrary, “the most punky” side of the band couldn’t be imagined without English, probably because of its world famous rude words, but who knows. But it would be wrong if a one thinks that Frakture is a punk band. This band was one of the first marked as “coldwave”, and this release contains enough songs, such as “Sans Visage”, “Rires du temps” and others which can be called a kind of “coldwave” close to Marquis de Sade, but performed in more aggressive manner as if Marquis de Sade was performed by early “The Stooges”.
Hard to say, why Frakture faced this kind of historical injustice. May be because there was no any “wave” in the times when the band played, may be because the band didn’t have any full length release (there was the 7” EP “Sans Visage” and a song on the compilation “Rock’nRennes”) before 2004… but it’s exactly not because of the band’s music which can be appreciated by many fans of (post) punk / wave music.
Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
‘Grave Jibes Fanzine’
