Their latest release, A Tout Moment, released in October this year is contained within the Amazon widget to the left. I’ve just bought this album today and as I write this have not yet listened to it – this is today’s motivation to get to the gym. A treadmill full of Eiffel awaits me once I’ve published this post. Or should that be “an Eiffel of treadmill?”.

UPDATE: I’ve had my first listen to the album and there are a two or three tracks that sound great – in particular there is some blinding drumming and some truly dramatic sections of the film soundtrack kind. The clean guitar on Mort J’Appelle put me in mind of the acoustic sections that intersperse W.A.S.P.’s The Crimson Idol, an album which is one of my guilty pleasures and is currently coming nostalgically through my computer’s speakers. God, I’d forgotten how much I loved that damn album. When it finishes I am going to listen to Eiffel’s offering again and see if I can’t write a readable review.

The song I am going to translate here is A Tout Moment La Rue which you can listen to in its entirety online on their website where you can also find the lyrics.

We find another left-wing reference à la this song. Thanks to the community at the Word Reference Forums I now know that the “trois cent familles” is a reference to the concept that a small number of privileged and wealthy families are running the country.

We have a problem in the translation. Avoir pignon sur rue means to be well-established. In the lyric “ces trois cent familles qui sur la rue ont pignon à tout moment elle peut aussi dire non” the “elle” refers to “la rue” so we have to keep the word street in the translation of the expression. Which frankly isn’t possible so the translation is rather a hack. Ideas welcome.

As promised, today’s post is a translation from La Belle Étoile.

Marions-Nous Au Soleil (Let’s Get Married In The Sun), features Karina Zeviani and is the second track on La Belle Étoile which was the subject of the yesterday’s post.

A few pieces of interesting vocabulary to look at. I struggled to translate “ma caille” which means literally “my quail”. This is an affectionate term for a girlfriend and I searched my brainbox for English birdy equivalents but failed to find anything.

Unfortunately there is currently a problem with the Amazon widget creator which means that I have only been able to include seven tracks from the album on the widget to the left. Luckily they are seven of the best. You can hear samples from all tracks here.

Unless something spectacular happens over the next four weeks, I can confidently state that La Belle Étoile is the finest French language album of 2009. I absolutely adore it.

I was privileged to be able to catch two performances by Babylon Circus while they were on the UK leg of their current European tour and given half a chance I fully intend to travel over to France and see them again in the new year.

They are one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen and I for one hope they gain the massive recognition they deserve.

La Belle Étoile, released in March 2009, is something of a musical departure for the band whose last album was release five years ago. Previous studio releases have been packed with hard ska and reggae beats and more than a dash of the revendicatif. This album is slightly more melodic and slightly more subtle and devastating with its attack on your whatever part of your brain is responsible for trapping catchy songs in the internal humbox.

Every base is covered from the thumping, concert-opening Perdu, the thumping, crowd-pleasing La Cigarette, to the understated Des Fois and Le Fils Caché Du Pape to the gorgeous voice of Karina Zeviani on Marions-nous au soleil and the embarrassingly-catchy Nina.

What can I say? I love it. I urge you to use the Amazon widget to the left to listen to extracts.

Tomorrow I will publish a translation of one of the tracks – haven’t decided which yet.