If the press release is to be believed, the key to understanding this album lies in the cover image.
It is a photograph of a woman taken by the band's Henry (Alcock White) as she ties up her hair after a shower. She is apparently the inspiration for each of the nine songs which, we are told, tell "a story about finding, losing, and again finding love"..
If I sound sceptical, it's because I am. If there are songs about celebrating love here, then they are either very well hidden or else didn't make it to the final cut.
The main focus here is on the turbulent, self destructive aspect of a relationship, the losing part rather than the winning.
Take, for example, the closing track (New Guy) where the desperate request to "tell me what's better about the new guy" hardly sounds like someone now reunited with an ex.
The bitter twist to the opening song, and title track, sets the mood with the cynicism plain to hear as Henry sings "I'm siding with the school of thought that says it's better to be fucked than do the fucking".
The centrepiece of the album is a song called On A Week Night which appears in full and edited versions. It has a catchy chorus about a chivalrous suitor taking flowers and "climbing up the towers" but there's no mistaking that this is ultimately a song about being fobbed off and ultimately dumped.
Henry and the Nightcrawlers started life in the Pacific Northwest but are now based in Vancouver. As well as doing the singing, Henry plays guitar, keyboards, bass and drums.
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On the album sleeve, he is the only one pictured, looking a bit old-fogeyish in a tweed jacket and v-neck sweater. You have to conclude that the two Nightcrawlers in the website publicity shots are there to make up the numbers. For the record, these are bassist Peter Carruthers and Tony Marriot.
The album title is a reference to the French new wave classic Les Quatre Cents Corps (albeit minus 300 blows) and there is another Francois Truffaut connection On A Week Night with a name check to Truffaut's fictional creation (and alter ego) Antoine Doinel and the movie Stolen Kisses.
The songs themselves are the musical equivalent of arty vignettes, literate to the point of being overly wordy and brimming with a frustration which occasionally spills over into spitefulness: "I'm only your friend in the daytime, at night you can just fuck off", Henry sings on Daytime Friend.
It is this undercurrent of misanthropy that makes these songs hard to warm to - maybe he should have written some straight boy meets girl tunes and left it at that.
Henry's Homepage
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