There’s a strip of coastline outside Toulon where the Mediterranean laps quietly at abandoned military fortifications. It’s an unlikely breeding ground for a quartet who sound as if they’ve been bottled in a sweat‑boxed Camden dive bar since 1977, but that’s exactly where The Spitters first rehearsed a decade ago. Now, four LPs deep and armed with Greatest Spits, a ferocious retrospective that dropped earlier this year, the garage‑power‑pop renegades are tightening their guitar straps for a June single and a fifth album in November. The French are coming, and this time the distortion is dialled past eleven.
(If you’re skim‑reading, here’s your informal table of contents: the story so far, why France suddenly cares about punk, how The Spitters fit into the larger francophone surge, and what sets the UK’s new wave apart.)
Cassette‑Swapping to Continental Touring
Frontman Maxime Richard and drummer Dorian Lahais‑Cazalé were still swapping Nirvana and Kiss tapes in the playground when they decided to form a band. Add six‑string foil Barnabé Pinel and low‑end vandal Florian “Sloog” Bourlet and you had the line‑up that would crash every basement from Toulon to Tyneside. The early records (Crazy and Movement) were all clattering hi‑hats and chrome‑plated hooks, but the Buzzcocks‑on‑Red‑Bull melodies sharpened with each tour. By 2023’s Kitty Brain they’d found a sweet spot between the Hives’ theatrical snap and the home‑grown snarl of Montpellier’s Les Lullies.
Where a British outfit like Shame often leans into angular art‑punk or IDLES weaponises bludgeoning repetition, The Spitters keep their songs sub‑three minutes and allergic to filler. On stage they’re a cyclone: Richard spits choruses from somewhere behind his fringe while Sloog pogo‑sticks beside him, bass slung so low it’s practically a health hazard. It’s old‑school, but it’s irresistible.
Why France Suddenly Wants Its Ears Ringing
Ask a Paris promoter why they now book three punk bills a week and you’ll get a lecture on rent strikes, presidential pension rows and the price of a pint in Pigalle. Economic angst has always poured rocket fuel on the genre (see Thatcher‑era Britain), and France 2024‑25 is no exception. Yet the surge isn’t just protest music; it’s infrastructure. DIY collectives such as Grabuge in Lyon or Toulouse Hardcore Society have turned squats into fully miked venues, while state‑funded arts grants—ironically—let bands press vinyl without mortgaging their vans.
Streaming statistics back it up: Spotify France reported a 42 per cent year‑on‑year jump in plays for punk and post‑punk playlists during 2024’s third quarter. Bands like Pogo Car Crash Control crash‑landed on prime‑time TV, and even mainstream festivals—Rock en Seine, La Route du Rock, noring‑fencew slots for feedback aficionados. Against that backdrop, The Spitters’ raw, bilingual choruses suddenly feel like the house band for a generational moment.
Crossing the Channel: Vive la Différence
Spend an evening at London’s Windmill Brixton and you’ll notice the UK’s new breed—Soft Play (the artists formerly known as Slaves), Sprints and Lambrini Girls—tilt towards spoken‑word polemics. Lyrics tackle burnout, Brexit fallout and north–south divides with a sardonic wink. The guitars crunch, yes, but the social commentary is almost academic.
France’s class of ’25, by contrast, prizes adrenaline over analysis. The Spitters will slip a sly dig at Macron in a chorus, but they’re not writing white papers. Their mission is simpler: body‑slam the crowd and leave everyone humming. Where British punk currently obsesses over angular rhythms and wordy manifestos, French punk has rediscovered melody, call it pop sensibility with broken glass in its trainers.
Another divergence is mobility. UK bands benefit from a dense circuit of provincial venues, Nottingham to Newcastle, Glasgow to Guildford, making it possible to tour three nights a week without needing a passport. French acts face longer drives between cities but compensate by leap‑frogging international borders: Barcelona on Friday, Milan on Saturday, Lausanne on Sunday. The Spitters logged 25,000 motorway miles last year alone, refining a show tough enough to win over clubs from Madrid to Cattolica.
Greatest Spits and the Road Ahead
Greatest Spits could have been a rose‑tinted victory lap. Instead the compilation feels like a live grenade passed from track to track, remastered to bite harder than the originals. Richard’s vocal takes are newly feral; the twin‑guitar passages between him and Pinel slice like helicopter rotors. Crucially, the record isn’t a full stop. The June teaser single, title still under wraps, was produced by Mike Curtis, the Brit behind Bad Nerves, and insiders say it clocks in at a concise 2:26. If rumours about the November LP are to be believed, expect thirteen songs and a tempo map that never dips below “pub‑floor trampoline.”
The timing couldn’t be sharper. Paris is protesting, London is overdosing on post‑post‑punk irony, and continental festival bookers are desperate for a band that can unite both camps. If The Spitters can bottle their stage chemistry onto tape, they’ll slide onto Reading & Leeds line‑ups faster than you can say “encore.”
Punk’s renaissance in France
Punk’s renaissance in France is no mirage; it’s the soundtrack to economic jitters, political vertigo and a country rediscovering its appetite for sweaty communal release. The UK scene, ever the elder statesman, remains lyrically cerebral and structurally supportive, yet French outfits like The Spitters inject a melodic urgency that feels refreshingly recession‑proof.
So keep an ear out come June. Because when those opening chords hit, and you suddenly feel the urge to fling your pint skywards, remember: that’s not just nostalgia …it’s Toulon calling. And Toulon isn’t whispering; it’s howling through a half‑stack in your local club.
Bandcamp: https://thespittersband.bandcamp.com/album/kitty-brain
