La Peste

Fancy taking a trip down to Dr John’s bayou, with Andy Weatherall’s decks appeal, Nick Cave’s religious fervour, and Johnny Cash’s outlaws as your inlaws? Add in Billy Bragg’s social awareness, Gavin Friday’s sense of the theatrical, throw a whole heap of class A’s in your saddlebag and you’re somewhere towards understanding the unconventional, uncompromising appeal of Alabama 3, the finest techno cowpunks ever born (or should that be made?) in Brixton.

Currently enjoying a higher profile thanks to the inclusion of ‘Woke Up This Morning’ as the theme tune to the best TV drama in aeons, The Sopranos, The Bammies (© Stuart Clark) are still frighteningly neglected, and their debut Exile On Coldharbour Lane LP is one of the most cruelly underrated of the last decade. Hopefully, La Peste will change all that, as they thrust their techno-gospel-country-blues into previously unexplored territory.

Taking its title from a French extistentialist novel by Albert Camus, La Peste’s agenda is more serious than before. Where their debut advised against going to Goa in an almost cartoon-like (albeit brilliant) fashion, La Peste for the most part leaves the jokes behind for the more sombre subject matter of ‘Cocaine (Killed My Community)’ and ‘The Thrills Have Gone’, featuring Birmingham Six member Paddy Hill on a shiveringly good tune.

In fact, an ill-advised take on The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ is probably the only weak spot on an otherwise superb collection. ‘Wade Into The Water’ and ‘2129’ immerse themselves in religious iconography while simultaneously bathing in pop culture, John Lennon trading blows with Judas while Marylin Monroe swaps fashion tips with Mary Magdelane. The hilarious intro to ‘Walking In My Sleep’ takes its voodoo cue from Dr John’s gris gris swamp blues, while the resounding ‘Too Sick To Pray’ sees The Reverend D. Wayne Love and Larry Love trading vocals on a narrative that could have come straight from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.

Then there’s the closing ‘Sinking’, which takes Tom Waits as its starting point, before crossing through U2’s ‘The Wanderer’ and wallowing in Homer’s Odyssey, proving that these cowboys have one spur in high culture and the other in low art. Here’s hoping La Peste makes them household names in both camps.