The Brutal Wave

VINYL FORMAT. The debut album from Frank (Just Frank) from Paris, France is entitled The Brutal Wave, out on Brooklyn's Wierd Records. The Brutal Wave draws from many rich traditions of guitar driven wave, minimal synth, and new indie music from Brooklyn respectively - layering lush washes of atmospheric anglophilic guitars that invoke early REM, Smiths, or the Cocteau Twins above a minimal synth and drum machine fueled backdrop with the caustic intensity of A Place to Bury Strangers, the wavey sounds of Crystal Stilts or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and the sweeping melancholia of The Depreciation Guild. Equally of disparate origins are the band members themselves: Chris was born in New Jersey and grew up with half-Indian Kirti in Nice in the South of France, although both were schooled in London. Despite such varied influences and backgrounds, Frank Just Frank is based in France, and indeed proudly embrace and present a newly modernized version of the highly-overlooked tradition of early 80's moody French pop known at the time as the Cold Wave, or "La Vague Froide."