Besançon – Veglam

10 previously unreleased, live, or rare songs by France’s best surf rock band The IRRADIATES. “All You Need Is… Transmutation” puts you right into the band’s vintage sci-fi world with some strident punked-up surf rock. “Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die” is a great song title, and no wonder that you can hear the DEAD KENNEDYS‘ spirit in it. The IRRADIATES have never been a trad surf band, but they sometimes get close to it in songs like “Ca$h” or “Dr. Holidays.”
While the tracks are mostly instrumental, you’ll hear some vocals in “Slide Machine” (13th ELEVATORS cover with JERRY SPIDER GANG‘s vocalist Lo as a guest), “Everything Turns Grey” (live AGENT ORANGE cover with Mike Palm guesting on vocals!), or in “Knowledge From Abroad” that surprisingly almost sounds like a FUGAZI song.
This record comes out in a cool gatefold cover, including notes about each song and black and white pictures of the producers/audio engineers who worked on these songs. Good job again, guys! /Laurent C.

http://www.theirradiates.org/
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http://www.productions-impossible.com/

Watch out! France’s best cosmic surf punk band is back with 12 new songs recorded and mixed by Jim Monroe (CJ Ramone, The ADOLESCENTS, etc.) in Besançon, France (Cube Studio.)
“Revenge Of The Plants” is mixed in a more old-school (trad-surf rock) way than the band’s previous releases (Their 2010 release “Audio Mental Manipulation Device” was recorded by Steve Albini, and thus had a more “indie/punk rock sound”), here guitars from Dick Den’s and Arno DeCea are orgasmically fighting with each other (“Locked In The Chromatic Spectrum”, “Malherbologie”, “Audrey Jr.”) while Buanax and Macst’s groovy punky rhythm section solidly stands in the back.
You’ll hear some raw guitar riffs mixed to moody ones in songs like “Shut Up. Let’s Grow” or “Parola 12345678(9)”, some classic rock’n’roll guitars and punk rock vocals (“Jack-In-The-Pulpit”, or the amazing “Tales Of A Poisoned Seed” and its DEAD KENNEDYS vocal touches), and clever tributes to the pioneers of surf music (Link Wray, Dick Dale, etc.) in songs like “Caulerpa Taxifolia”, “Unidentified Wild Flower”‘ or “Sap Rain.”
Ending on a dramatic note with a track called “Herbivore” (not too surprising for a vegetarian band, right?), “Revenge Of The Plants” will drown your mind in a colourful Sci-Fi, B-Movie sea while your feet won’t do anything but dance!/Laurent C.