The Decline! is a five piece punk rock band from Rennes, Breizh formed in 2009. Their first EP, ‘An Old Indian Cemetery’, was released in the middle of 2010, and showed what proper genuine music today should be all about. Their first full length ‘Broken Hymns For Beating Hearts’ from 2011 was a mix of punk rock and acoustic folk tunes and was as good a first album any punk band could expect to release. Their sound is a combination of a strong and distinctive voice, with a thick, twin guitar attack and rumbling rhythm section which gets your blood pumping and drags you back for listen after listen. For their new album ’12a Calgary Road’ the band plough pretty much the same furrow taking on varying tempos with ease and keeping your interest.
The vocals help make ’12a Calgary Road’ stand out and they’ve managed to put together a great set of songs that do not just rely on one distinctive element. The Decline! puts Brittany back on the map in terms of punk rock and you would be crazy not to check them out as soon as possible.
At nearly 50 minutes long you’d expect a punk album to drag on a bit or be filled up with filler tracks but it fails on both those criteria. The eerie ‘Intro’ kicks straight into ‘Pieces Of My Broken Dreams’ which sets the scene for an album chock full of angry pissed off melodic punk. Punk ballad ‘Everything Goes Wrong’ continues the theme and reminds me a bit of goth-era The Damned for some reason.
The famous ‘Roazhon Celtic Kop’ end at Rennes FC.
The title track is the albums stand out track but there’s a few contenders. ‘Here Comes The Cold’ show cases The Decline!’s talent as a bit of a folky band too with acoustic guitars and fiddle leading another punk rock ballad. Two songs later and celtic-punk rears its beautiful head with ‘A Smiling Beast, A Crying Angel’ another one of those contenders for stand out track and to be honest it could stand up against the best of the celtic-punk scenes bands. ‘Out Of The Maze’ is a country tinged punk masterpiece and finally ‘Gone With The Stream’ brings the curtain down on the best punk album of the year so far.
for another great Breton band go here and read the review of THE MAGGIE WHACKERS new EP plus a bit of Brittany history…but for the real lowdown on whats happening then please go to THE BRETON CONNECTION site here.
The ROAZHON CELTIC KOP 1991 facebook page is here
click on the logo on the LONDON CELTIC PUNKS logo at the top of the page to find out more of the same from us…
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