2nd District “What’s Inside You!?”

The catchy power poppy single “The Love Has Gone” released more than a year ago as a video was quite a good teaser… It was an obvious hint that German glam punks 2nd DISTRICT decided to put more emphasis on the melodies in their songs. Indeed, as soon as “Broken Bits Of a Lifetime” starts, you get great memorable guitar melodies mixed to punk rock singalong backing vocals that will make you raise your fist in the air. Still angry in an early MANICS way, the band knows how to spit some snotty anthems (the killer and addictive “The Bourgeois Attitude”) in the face of our ugly society, but they also know how to put their emotions in their music. Actually, the guitars in songs like “Wherever You Are” or “Slow It Down” remind me of “old” US emo rock bands like HOT WATER MUSIC, RITES OF SPRING, The PROMISE RING, before the style got raped by MTV and the Internet. This emphasis on melodies alos lead 2nd DISTRICT to write a ballad on this album: “Pain Museum” featuring Pascal Briggs. Sometimes, Marc’s androgynous voice get close to old PLACEBO (“Without Any Light”, “You’re Not The Right One”), but 2nd DISTRICT always keep their ’77 punk spirit (“The Market Crash”) and raw live-like rock’n’roll energy (“Bad Habit”, “A Soldier In A Chnia Shop.”)
“What’s Inside You!?” manages to be powerful, subtle, and angry at the same time. A must-have!/Laurent C.