Metal Urbain - Les Hommes Morts Sont Dangereux

The shockwaves of the ’77 punk explosion were so widespread and commercially underwhelming that it’s no great surprise a bevy of exceptional names ended up slipping through the cracks. One such band was Métal Urbain, Paris France’s influential and still potent kings of drum-box punk. It’s in this early stage of wide-open possibility that Métal Urbain was born. Noted as not only the first band to use a drum-machine in the scheme of punk but also for being responsible for the inaugural release on the legendary Rough Trade label (RT 001), they are notable for so much more than just achieving a stylistic footnote and for providing the answer to a stumper in a music-nut trivia contest. For Métal Urbain shined, if only for a short while, as a beacon of punk rock’s expansive promise and if not vastly influential the group certainly proved crucial in shaping certain corners of the subsequent u-ground rock racket. They were for example the template from which Big Black managed to stir such a divisive storm. Métal Urbain’s sound resides much closer to the direct gut-punch that dominated the great sea-change of 1977. Having witnessed an early Sex Pistols show in their home city, the band first disrupted Parisian night life in December of ‘76, getting promptly banned from the Golf Drouot club after their debut gig. A single on the Cobra label followed in April of the following year, and Métal Urbain’s course was set.
That release inspired not only the interest of Rough Trade, but also the fandom of BBC disc jockey John Peel. Two more singles and a radio session for Peel followed, but acceptance on their home turf proved allusive. The band alternated between England and France in an attempt to broaden their following, but Rough Trade’s lack of funds and a mounting tide of indifference and creative stumbling blocks at home led to increased frustrations and tensions. In mid-’79 the group splintered into a pair of interesting projects both led by member Eric Débris, the more pronounced post-punk of Metal Boys and the experimentally inclined Doctor Mix and the Remix, and Métal Urbain’s destiny as one of punk’s surplus of coulda-been-contenders seemed all but inevitable. However in 1981 the Les Hommes Morts Sont Dangereux (translation: The Dead Men Are Dangerous) LP was released on the band’s own Byzz label. Compiling all three singles, the Peel recordings and unreleased tracks, the record managed to keep them out of the clutches of history’s cruel dustbin. Les Hommes Morts Sont Dangereux stands as the leanest, most effective document of the band. While immediately situating Métal Urbain as punk in orientation, it also places them far away from the norm in execution. Those percolating drum patterns quickly reveal the group’s strategy as forward-thinking rather than reductive, a reality further emphasized by the employment of brute synthesizers and bursts of controlled guitar noise.
Whether it’s through the avenues of rare vinyl, compact disc, or digital, anybody that fancies themselves a true connoisseur of classic punk should make certain to get acquainted with Métal Urbain. Listening to their work as documented on Les Hommes Morts Sont Dangereux vindicates the vision of a band that, if not as lauded as Gang of Four or Wire, still deserve a place on the top shelf.