Frau Fleischer – We Are Not…

Released by: Sliptrick Records

Release Date: 23.03.25

Running Time: 44:02

Score: 322,889/10

Hi from the mighty island of Great Britain once again. I am still here, fighting the good fight or the glory of Metal in all its myriad forms and for other Extreme music as well. Today, It has been winter, spring and summer all in one day. Currently the sun is burning the back of head, yet mere moments ago it sounded like Noah’s Ark was going to float past. Before that there were arctic winds, and it was freezing cold. My homeland is a capricious and unpredictable mistress, capable of astonishing beauty that cradles in its verdant, meadowsweet covered fields and ancient, wise forests, or at the whim of whatever passes for its soul, will strike with the force of centuries of hatred with weather that even a Canadian might find difficult to deal with.

It is this changeable nature, this unpredictability that makes the Brits a people like no other in their adaptability. Our sense of humour is finely honed from being far too hot at one moment and then being lashed with hail the next. We endure. We take it on the chin, and we make light of it. It is our way, and if we are being extremely rude to you it generally means that we like you. If we are being polite, then watch out. If we sign off an email with “Regards”, instead of “Kind Regards”, run. Run fast and don’t stop. That means we are fucking furious, and we are ready for war. Also, tea. It is the elixir of life. Nothing can’t be improved massively by a cup of tea. Ours is the only army in the world who could be fighting a battle for its very existence and stop for a cup of tea before winking at the soldier next to you (who has also stopped for a quick brew) and saying, “Come on then, you wanker, are you fighting or what?”

This has nothing to do with why I am here, of course, but I am that knackered from work I can barely see straight, and I am literally typing whatever is in my head in a vain hope that it will be interesting and amusing, and I fear greatly that you are actually watching the disintegration of my sanity in real time.

Still, I am British, and we never take a challenge lying down, so we have dragged the Platter of Splatter ™ from its cage and battered it into compliance and slung an offering upon it. That offering is the latest release from French Industrialists Frau Fleischer. J’adore la France. This hairy French duo was once a trio fronted by a glam drag queen, but that person left, and the remaining members decided to carry on the band with just the two of them.

This was a fortuitous decision. I have reviewed Frau Fleischer before, several years ago and enjoyed their music but there were very significant rough edges that needed to be ironed out, but there was oodles and oodles of promise in their output. Now, it appears that Gabriel Daimon leaving the band was absolutely the best thing that could have happened to Frau Fleischer, as on  “We Are Not…” they have tightened up their songwriting and their sound in frankly disturbing fashion – Vocalist Greg Lambert (who also plays a metric fuckton of instruments) sings with a strong and powerful voice that’s half James Hetfield snarling and the sexually-charged growling of Cubanate’s Marc Heal. Remember Cubanate? Fucking hell, they were an amazing band and cruelly ignored as their mix of Techno and Metal was too much for the traditionalists to stomach and too Poppy for the Industrial crowd.

Frau Fleischer are the band that are taking up the idiosyncratic gauntlet of Cubanate, their melange of Futurepop, Metal, Industrial, Techno, New Wave, New Romantic and Goth being unusual and interesting and, to be honest, lighting up the pleasure centres of Dark Juan’s brain like Blackpool illuminations. If they were composed of blacklights and neon. You’d think, with all those influences at work that Frau Fleischer’s music would be a shocking and disjointed mess, wouldn’t you? And you’d be about 3% right. There are moments of jarring disharmony, but they are designed and deliberate and add to the whole experience rather than take from it. That’s a Very Good Thing.

‘Shining Star’ opens up the album and sounds very much like a heavier, rawer KMFDM, whereas “Out of Control” is like Fear Factory discovering Techno and locking Dino Cazares in a cupboard with a bunch of jazz rags until the guitar parts needed to be recorded.  ‘A Strangest Dream’ is Depeche Mode if Depeche Mode were actually French and were knocking about being all ambiguously seductive in Soho fleshpots with VNV Nation. ‘A Fading Hum’ has a fucking sexy sax break as well as breathy, seductive vocals as well as roaring viciously and has a fucking AMAZING break in the middle of the song that is just absolutely fucking colossal, even as it is deceptively simple.

The dynamic of the album changes again on ‘I Keep On Dancing’ which has a fucking chorus FOR THE AGES and a kind of 80s Electropop feel but with some phat-ass guitars, where ‘Bagarre 23’ is full on Combichrist/ Unter Null Techno/ EBM aural terrorism of the highest order, and where Frau Fleischer stray closest to the sacrosanct (in my head anyway ) lands of Cubanate’s Metal/ Techno hybrid sound. It’s an absolutely savage tune and clear evidence of just how Power Electronics and Aggrotech can enhance the brutality of Metal if done right. Frau Fleischer don’t need cannons to level bastions. They just play ‘Bagarre 23’ through fucking massive speakers and watch three-foot-thick walls crumble to dust in front of them in mere moments. Album closer ‘Evolution is Regression’ is a fucking uber-destructive way to end a record, being speedy, aggressive and uncompromising, and serving very well as an effect dénouement to ten tracks of frequently sublime Industrial brilliance.

Yes, it appears that the singer leaving Frau Fleischer is the best thing that ever happened to them. They are now a band unleashed. A band that is no longer playing at being aggressively sexy, but instead actually being that way inclined. Greg Lambert’s voice suits the music much better than Gabriel Daimon’s ever did and my enthusiasm for yet another French band now knows no bounds.

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Le système breveté de notation des éclaboussures de sang de Dark Juan, pour mes amis français et canadiens-français, et tous mes amis dans le monde francophone. Bonjour, permettez-moi de dire que si vous aimez la musique industrielle et que ça ne vous dérange pas qu'elle sorte un peu de la norme, alors je pense que vous apprécierez beaucoup Frau Fleischer. Vous avez déjà Fange, qui est l'un des plus grands groupes au monde, mais franchement, vous êtes juste gourmand maintenant, avec deux groupes industriels incroyables. Pourriez-vous partager cela avec nous au Royaume-Uni? Il était temps qu'on ait une «entente totale». Avec toute l'affection de votre ami britannique, Dark Juan) awards Frau Fleischer 322,889/10 for a record that has transformed my feelings about the band because it’s a dirty, sexy, perverted BDSM and shibari-fuelled romp that has really brightened my day up and has once more proved my assertions that France is producing some of the most exciting Extreme music in the world at the moment. Merci, mes amis! Merci beaucoup.

TRACKLISTING:

1 Shining Star

2 Out Of Control

3 In Your Dreams

4 A Strangest Dream

5 Toxic Pathetic Love

6 From Green To Deadly Grey

7 A Fading Hum

8 I Keep On Dancing

9 Bagarre '23

10 Evolution Is Regression

LINE-UP:

Greg Lambert - Guitar, vocals, drums, bass, keyboards

Franz Schultz - Electronics, keyboards, vocals

---

For more, visit the following links: Instagram | Bandcamp | Facebook  | Spotify