Founded in the late 1970’s in Rennes by Sergei Papail, Frakture made Kamikaze punk-rock, mainly sung in german, expressionnist aesthetics, cubist and angular tones…
inspired by Bertold Brecht, Otto Dix caricatures and Egon Schiele dislocated silhouettes. The band split in 1983 and reformed around 2004. This collection captures the best tracks of
Frakture.
The album opens with Schliesst Die Wände – a punk/new wave track which easily stands shoulder to shoulder with more well known bands of the time.
Nagaskind – reminds me of The Stranglers but with Dave Greenfield playing his keyboards on a guitar. Love It! Wasserstoff Bäby
– Manic new wave. Die Sackgasse (Epic 1981) – has a hint of Skids Epic! Eis Und Nebel – downtempo new wave ballad. Auskinder –
punk guitars and what sounds like a flute fused perfectly reminds me of The 3 Johns. Inventive! Zusamen – has a hint of Spear Of Destiny’s You’ll Never
take Me Alive. Burning Rain (10 000 Soleils)- see’s the punk fury left behind and for a change this one is sung in English with almost a hint of Virgin
Prunes . Silent World – very experimental. Misshandlungen – is a live recording which reminds me of the excellent band The Opposition.
Spaziergang – is new wave song with a sax which has sound which is familiar but hard place from where it was heard before! Fraülein Erika is another live track.
Damen Und Chamagner – another live track with sax. Kinheit – a live track. Schwarze Und Licht is again live and has a wide new wave appeal.
Vierte Weltkrieg live track which again has the feeling of The Opposition about it. Scarlet Fashion sounds like an 80’s chart hit.
Du reminds me of The Teardrop Explodes. In Der Kasernen – is live and the final track on the album and is a deutsche cabaret type
ballard.
John Peel would definately have been a big fan of this band! Recommended for fans of punk/new wave, The Stranglers, The Skids, The Opposition, The
Teardrop Explodes etc.
This release of one of the greatest French post-punk bands of the late 70’s-early 80’s you’ve probably never heard of, was out five years ago, in 2004, by
“Westsound” label and mostly was ignored. And this review of this release is a kind of a try to improve the situation. “Check Point” consists of 18 songs, recorded from 1979 to 1982 and its stuff
has incredibly vast musical range from post-punk / and new/cold wave to some punk’77/hardcore. It’s remarkable that Frakture doesn’t belong and wave as “school”, they were one of the first who
started to play this kind of music in the distant 1977, having only some rumors and echoes of the (post) punk boom in other countries. But in general, and very approximately, Frakture can be
called a kind of that middle which balances Dead Kennedys and Marquis de Sade.
The release doesn’t have a chronological order, but during listening to “Check Point”, the sound becomes more wild and raw, so a listener can notice such
punk-sounding “dirty” and cynic hits as “I Hate Ya” or “Guy” instead of “soft”, but driven “Sans Visage”, “”Jungfrau”…. The release is filled with hits, which actually sound very different,
partly due to using a language (German, French or English). For example, it absolutely can’t be imagined if “Die Sackgasse” and “Wasserstoff Baby” were sung on any other language except German,
this language out down its roots in the most original way it could. On the contrary, “the most punky” side of the band couldn’t be imagined without English, probably because of its world famous
rude words, but who knows. But it would be wrong if a one thinks that Frakture is a punk band. This band was one of the first marked as “coldwave”, and this release contains enough songs, such as
“Sans Visage”, “Rires du temps” and others which can be called a kind of “coldwave” close to Marquis de Sade, but performed in more aggressive manner as if Marquis de Sade was performed by early
“The Stooges”.
Hard to say, why Frakture faced this kind of historical injustice. May be because there was no any “wave” in the times when the band played, may be because
the band didn’t have any full length release (there was the 7” EP “Sans Visage” and a song on the compilation “Rock’nRennes”) before 2004… but it’s exactly not because of the band’s music which
can be appreciated by many fans of (post) punk / wave music.
Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
‘Grave Jibes Fanzine’