Album Notes

How many bands do they have to blow off the stage before they receive the Napoleonic crown that is their due? They have the sound, they have the attitude, and they definitely have the name. But it’s impossible not to be baffled by the arrogance of a band that nonchalantly declares, “We are ROCK&ROLL!” And the king cobras of the new wave of French rock are damn right to be cocky.

In less than a year these four refined hooligans have become the darlings of the music and fashion worlds alike. As V Man describes so eloquently, “Imagine the Ramones dressed by Beau Brummel in a dandyish blur of black leather, velvet and sweat”

And the music? Definitive French rock magazine, Inrockuptibles, elected them Best New Band of 2006 out of a pool of 7000 contestants. And don’t doubt it. ROCK&ROLL’s astounding energy slams the psyche like a heat-seeking missile. On stage their balls-to-the-wall, blistering beats are honed as tight as Louvre security, their all-pervasive staccato guitar riffs blitzkrieg the body like Hendrix unleashing Machine Gun.

Their heady song concoctions are mature beyond their youthful French strut, and catchier than Avian Flu; like the White Stripes meets Plastic Bertrand on a bed of ‘70s Stones; or the Black Crowes spiked to 45 on meth, sharing the stage with Billy Idol and The Cars, atop rampant Led Zep guitar tones and omnipresent disco-tech bass lines. The art of the raconteur now has a new if classic name; ROCK&ROLL.

Amidst the tsunami of media coverage in their home country, it’s hard to believe it was only one year ago that four well-bred Parisian lads - Gricha Berekachvili, Paul Louis Viguier, L.A.M.F. and Matthias Cadéac d’Arbaud - created a band that would embody everything they love about rock and roll; its essence, its spirit and its unbridled sexual energy, helped by audacious lyrics and infected by a hedonistic and aristocrat French sensibility.

The group’s anthemic, triple-vocal, harmonic onslaught is like the final nail in the coffin of the steel-sprung song-beds that emanate like a whirling dirvish from the mind and fingers of number one frontman Gricha. Tracks like Made It To New York and Losers, Boozers, Jacuzzi Users boast Fender and Gibson guitar sounds that sparkle with unbridled power to a new Gallic beat that will stop for nothing.

In just 12 months the group has become the figurehead of the Parisian underground, thanks to shambolic performances that combine an electrifying stage presence with pedigreed musical references and ridiculous sex appeal; packing the trendiest venues of France, stealing the show when opening for indie stars such as We Are Scientists, The Editors and Shout Out Louds to legends the Buzzcocks. Touring across the USA they are upending the egos of countless famed internationals by relegating their headline billing to a drizzly aftershow for ROCK&ROLL’s tour de force!

Esteemed French music magazine Rock and Folk, lauds their “perfect looks and songs with ideal pop format” while celebrating a band that displays “as much harmony as chaos and even flights into delirium…” As Dazed and Confused points out, “the self-assured ROCK&ROLL have silenced initial japery about their name by proving to be true showmen.”

And last year when ROCK&ROLL released their limited edition four-track “First Class Plane EP”, it quickly hit Itunes’ top 15 and sold out in a month. It prefigures the international success of a band that has given French Touch new life by trading in the syrupy pop-rock sound of bands like Air for danceable guitar riffs and throbbing drumbeats that hark to the finest moments of the Stones, The Ramones and Led Zep albeit with an urgent, millennial, gravity-defying spin.

With even the most purist of music critics, fashion editors and trendsetters stomping their feet to the sound of these four HOT enfants terribles, Inrockuptibles Mag issues the following warning: “Hide your sisters, ROCK&ROLL is in town.”

With trademark punk panache, ROCK&ROLL themselves add, “Your mothers and daughters too!” Cos when these boys break it down, nothing is left behind..

www.myspace.com/thenameofthebandisrockandroll

http://www.youtube.com/RocknRollParis