They've been scooping up regular kudos stateside over the past couple of years thanks to support slots with Sonic Youth, The Walkmen and Idlewild and their coup of becoming the house band on NBC'S 'Late Night With Carson Daly', but DC-via-NYC quartet FRENCH KICKS are still something of an unknown quantity in Europe.
However, "The Trial Of The Century" (actually their second full-length album after 2002's "One Time Bells") should be just the ticket in the profile-raising stakes. It's a graceful, yet edgy listen and a rewarding 50 minutes in the company of yet another buncha charismatic Eastern seaboard moodists.
That description - plus the band's support slots with equally dark'n'suave characters like The Walkmen - will probably have you reaching for the de rigeur Big Apple comparisons, and certainly tunes like the strident'n'gritty "Don't Thank Me" and "The Falls" - with its' lugubrious disco drumming and typically wiry guitars - do recall The Strokes, though not in any drearily derivative way. And while the same kind of premise also informs penultimate track "Only So Long", it welcomes a looming dissonance you wouldn't initially expect.
Mostly, though, French Kicks' stamp their own charisma on the proceeedings. Opener "One More Time" is intelligent, thrumming pop fuelled by singer Nick Stumpf's bittersweet vocals and delicious swathes of synth. It's spacious, graceful gear with an edge and the occasional Krautrock twist which also features in the subtle pulsing of the title track. Lyrically, Stumpf's issues are almost entirely personal and the way his indecision contrasts with the band's euphoric backdrop on tracks like "The Falls" (sample lyric: "And in the back of my mind, don't I know that it's over") invariably works a treat.
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Elsewhere, the band's invention and rhythmic dexterity is intoxicating. "Oh Fine", for example, is based around handclaps, finger-snap drumbeats and a great, dubby bassline and builds into a mantra-style chorus of "you'll be fine", repeated as if to club the listener into submission. Texturally, it's excellent, as is "Yes I Guess", which recalls Stallastarr*s adrenaline-fuelled artiness and the closing "Better Time", which is again an intriguing departure, coming over sparse and elegiac with melancholic piano and a drum loop. Overall, it has as much in common with Talk Talk as it does the usual NYC suspects and is an intriguing door to leave ajar for the future.
French Kicks, then, are quite a find. They cock a snook at the rhythmically-strong NYC post-punkers, but come fully armed with bags of presence all their own. Their "Trial Of The Century" may not make front page news worldwide, but will be heavily referenced in the rock archives for years to come.
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