sorry we ruined your party
Forget about Green Day, Rancid, and the Offspring -- the best pop-punk came from mid-'80s English acts like the Wedding Present, the Shop Assistants, and the Flatmates. The U.K. music press called these bands "C-86," which meant nothing more than a mad combination of the Ramones and the Byrds -- super-fast tempos; overdriven, jangly guitars; atonal yet sweet vocals; and a lyrical obsession with heartbreak. Every couple of years, the form resurfaces, blasting forth from the likes of Tiger Trap, the Aislers Set, and now the Frenchmen. The latter Sacramento group's debut long-player is just as catchy, shambling, and noise-happy as its predecessors' work. Although the boys and girls don't always sing on key, they make up for it with rampant enthusiasm, bashing their way from one hook to the next, as if the Who were driving a semi through the Ronettes' back catalog. This is music for leaping around living rooms, "drinking beer and talking shit," as one lyric suggests. Looks like you don't need a mohawk to be punk after all.

reviewed by: Dan Strachota for SF Weekly

I'd been really looking forward to hearing an album full of Frenchmen songs ever since their fantastic 7" last year, and this is every bit as good as I'd hoped! Of course, it's hard not to love this album (at least for me), as I think this is precisely my favorite type of music! The band sits somewhere between Tiger Trap, Talulah Gosh and the Flatmates (right down to a cover of "Tell Me Why"!), from their speedy and shambling songs that all clock in around two minutes to the general style of the production and sound of the record. Among all the noisy guitars and chaotic drumming, there's a ton of terrific and simple melodies. Amy & Leon alternate lead vocal duties, but there are lots of boy/girl backing vocals in every song, as well. I just wish there were a LOT more bands like this around today! MTQ=12/12

reviewed by: Chris Mac for IndiePages

Now Amelia Fletcher and cohorts are a few years older and prone to thrash about less (although Tender Trap do have their rocking moments), it is left to bands like The Frenchmen to pick up the caustic edge of the C86 baton. Several tracks on here crash around like Talulah Gosh at their disorderly best, champing at the bit in classic post-Buzzcocks style with ethics that badly photocopied fanzines like this one have adored for a couple of decades now. Like rolling in the splintered remnants of sodden wood panelling, cracking and clattering like this is better in short bursts, and 25 minutes more than adequately houses the 12 tracks here, resulting in no loss of momentum. Magic.

reviewed by: Vanity Project

Eigenlijk is het ontzettend simpel: je richt een band op met een aantal vrienden, bijvoorbeeld een stuk of vier, bij voorkeur enigszins gelijkmatig verdeeld over de seksen. Vervolgens leer je de instrumenten een beetje bespelen en doet daarbij niet ingewikkeld en kiest gewoon voor gitaar, bas en drums. Dan ga je liedjes schrijven en doet dat nadat je eerst het hele oeuvre van Talulah Gosh, The Shop Assistans en The Flatmates hebt afgeluisterd. Daarna ga je er teksten bij verzinnen, gewoon over alledaagse onderwerpen en als dat niet lukt, dan zing je maar gewoon papapapapaaaa. Tenslotte ga je die nummers opnemen zodra je allemaal in opperbeste stemming bent en voilà, een album vol authentieke 1988-tweepunk! Toch zijn er maar weinig bands die het zo doem. The Frenchmen doet het wel. The Frenchmen zijn goe-hoed!

reviewed by: Martijn Grooten for Think Small

I woke in a fuzzy haze the other Saturday and grappled at the remote control from my bed, on came the face of some amiable kids presenter and then on crept Busted. One wore a Sonic Youth t-shirt, another had a ‘God save the queen’ sticker on his guitar. I turned over and slept some more.

In these days where alternative culture is ransacked by stylists hungry to apply some credibility to their latest mannequins, when a good quote is worth more than a good song and looks are so much more important than actual art, where do you turn? If only there was an enthusiastic little indie band to call your own and cherish.

The Frenchman are that band, like Belle and Sebastian on a caffeine overdose they are the hyper indie puppies who will charge at you and try to tumble you over. The music is punk with a very sweet dose of sugar; it’s enough to nod your head to but not enough to mosh to. You might compare them to the likes of The Razorcuts, while their naive lyrics evoke worry free happiness, ‘a swimming pool is rather cool’, and melancholy thought which never strays too deeply, ‘I wish for the same thing every night’.

So, yes, in the summer of 2004 you can sleep assured that when you awake The Frenchman won’t be whored out and splayed across some innocent hairless chest and they’ll always be yours. Fantastically adorable stuff.

reviewed by: Chris G for SoundsXP

If records came with health warnings stamped on the front as do cigarettes then this Frenchmen CD would have 'will cause you to dance like fuck with the likelihood of accidents resulting from bouncing off various bits of furniture and other such like' emblazoned about it in hugely distinctive red for danger lettering.

Obviously a band who got stuck somewhere in the whole c-86 scheme of things of that there's no doubt and we hasten to add no bad thing what with the distinct road signing of early Primal Scream, the Flatmates and the Loft sounding loudly in the fore ground, yet what's not certain is whether they want to do it all with a Who (the guitars on 'Change of Season') / Buzzcocks (the harmonies on the shit kicking cover of the Flatmates 'Tell me why') / Ramones (the riotously punky three chord speed thrills on 'Private name, private number') edge, pair any one of three with the Shangri-La's and then add a liberal sprinkling of the Razorcuts and the Wedding Present for colour and you have yourself a potent ear catching, head bashing, foot tapping 12 track stormer of some merit.

'Sorry we ruined your party' is the long player debut from Sacramento based quartet the Frenchmen, who so far to their credit last year delivered their debut 'Powdered Blue' (featured here as a live cut and replete in all its frenetic glory) single on Shelflife to much overjoyed acclaim. The Frenchmen's ideology it appears is to rush in as fast as possible lamp you to within an inch of your life with some of the catchiest tunes to be found sharing the same space on a CD laced with boy girl vocals along with ba ba ba's and ooh eooh's aplenty and then giving it legs to the nearest boozer.

Difficult to split the pack in terms of favourites though 'Crimes of Fashion' with its cutely executed dayglo sheen of the early career Creation label Felt meet Velvets meet the Pastels is pretty crucial while 'Runaway' is blessed with a ripping bubblegum on speed under carriage, but all said and done the unexpected treat of the scalping solo on 'Veteran's Day' kinda wins hands down. A butt-kicking beaut of a record and highly recommended as though you needed telling or for that matter cared.

reviewed by: Mark Barton for Losing Today

If you’d like something a little lighter, the explosive pop of The Frenchmen might be right up your alley. Their Clairecords debut Sorry We Ruined Your Party is a salvo of bright vocals and hyper drumbeats. Blissed out indie pop manifesting with titles like “Crimes of Fashion” and “Veterans Day”, the group find a middle ground that blends the noisiness of the Jesus and Mary Chain with a smart pop aesthetic not unlike that of many of the bands from the sadly now-defunct Sarah Records.

reviewed by: Jack Alberson for Pop Culture Spectrum

The drum intro is misleading: Purloined from the Surfaris’ 1963 smash hit “Wipe Out,” the tribal beat promises a Dick Dale-style hot-rod guitar wank. When the music starts, though, this disc, by Northern California’s Frenchmen, instead delivers nonstop pure-pop ebullience, the sort of thing you can sing in the shower, though you’ll lose track of the soap. Sure, the vocals are adenoidal, and although the songs are supremely tuneful, the singing, by former bassist (and SN&R writer and columnist) Amy Paris and guitarist Leon Levy, goes flat in all the right places, and some of the wrong ones, too. Instrumentally, this is pure bash ’n’ pop--with an emphasis on first takes recorded with a good room sound, some of them, in the Time Tested Books loft by top-notch instant record producer Chris Woodhouse. Neat, eh?

reviewed by: Jackson Griffith for the Sacramento News and Review