I’ve just performed my regular check for La Belle Étoile across the UK online music stores and it has recently become available on both iTunes and Amazon.
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. Luckily they are seven of the best.
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 love it.
I was privileged to be able to catch two performances by Babylon Circus (UPDATE: three – they returned several months later for another go!) 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.
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