Frustration are back, and after the first few bars, we know where they're going. And even though that's exactly what we'd like, they've chosen a different path than before, driven by a primal need so complex that its expression is never a repetition. Frustration doesn't teach music history, but that doesn't mean they don't know where they come from. The Born Bad band still screams post-punk. For snobs who roll on the floor when English is sung on the wrong side of the English Channel, there are two tracks in French this time, "Omerta" and "Consumés," a reminder that Fabrice Gilbert sings in an intermediate language that has retained the best of both idioms. It's the perfect way to enjoy his biting, blunt tirades, which cut a swathe through this generation "of apathetic truffles / fantasizing about assholes full of money." Anne of the Rouen-based band Hammershoi also sings in German on "Vorbei," a rare moment of pause on this intense, angry, and loud record, whose sound is less cold wave than its predecessor, "So Cold Streams." The rapid-fire drums of "Catching Your Eye" recall the joyful drone of "Shades From the Past," an instrumental piece from their first album. "Secular Prayer," which closes the album, confirms that frustration is as much a part of the Ian Curtis family as it is of the Ian Dury family. One has to be careful not to take oneself too seriously with such creative success. Precursor single "State Of Alert" ramps up the synth sirens, just a first energetic peak of French frustration 2024.