But what’s going on with this colorful band, who’ve got us used to covers worthy of a July 14th fireworks display? After 38 years, they’re making their first album cover in black and white (or almost… a little yellow)! And inside, a psychedelic medley of black-and-white baroque engravings! Have they become atrociously classic and well-mannered, has their music become a kind of ersatz of a posthumous and depressive Joy Division, have they given in to the temptation of post-punk and bourgeois rock revival 80’s fashion? But nay, they’ve gone their own way, as usual, away from fashions and trends, the better to surprise us in the corner of the jungle.

This is an album they wanted to be very close to their stage energy, raw, frontal and racy, mixed by Seb Lohro of Near Deaf Experience. They remain elusive, mixing garage rock and theremin on “Man made monster”, punkabilly and brass on “Monkey Brain”, Sergio Leone-style surf rock on “Mata Hari”, pure punk rock in the English 77 tradition on “Are we all zombies?”, exploding blues on “I need a place to cry”, almost pop on “Rattlesnake woman”, or surprisingly Nick “Cavien” on the track “Coal and roses”. Not to mention a return to the roots of the first “Go Vegetables go!” album, which made them a success in 1986, on “Swamp thing”.

Unclassifiable tracks, but with a mastery of arrangements that would make Bela Lugosi turn in his grave, creating a surprising unity between the different musical universes tackled. The palette is broad, but the color is rock’n’roll, the keys to which they have long held.