Lyon based melodic punk band LITIGE have teamed up with French label Destructure (BITPART, BLEAKNESS, EXHAUSTION, …) to release their second album “En Eaux Troubles”, which we’re stoked to give you in its full glory above! The new offering is a record that is as manically energetic and entertaining as it is independent and commited to important issues. With indirect and not obvious lyrics, “En Eaux Troubles” touches on gender equality, the power balance, social movements, or dealing with more personal stuff and relationships. Today, we bring you the authors, LITIGE, and the brief history of their project.
“En Eaux Troubles” frequently feels like a burst of different colours and it certainly makes the album playing to the band’s strengths:
“For this album, I guess we tried not to repeat oursselves, and to go a little bit further in the exploration of the different « colors » we can give to our songs.”
Recorded at the Epicerie Moderne with Bruno Germain.
Track by track commentary
Regardez-Moi
Started as a reflection around social media and the need of being seen and validated and praised. But i’m not judging. Teenage depression is looming in the song. Deep down, we all want to be seen and aknowledged and loved for who we are, right ?
Guerrière
Means “Woman Warrior” in french. Inspired by the fight of Indigenous women in North and South Dakota, criminalised, arrested and harrassed because they try to protect their land against exploitation from oil companies. How they need the pain and grief to be seen by those who perpetrate and finance it.
Bulldozer
About these dudes elbowing and pogo-ing their asses off in shows and stomping on everybody’s feet. Why should they care about the people around them, huh ? They’re having a good time, why can’t everyone else ? (answer –> because they’re spoiling all the fun). Also about mansplaining.
Samouraï
For the last year and a half, the yellow jackets movement has tried to wake the country up and shout its anger and hunger for more social justice. It’s about fighting, feeling strong enough or not, being overwhelmed, enraged or unsure, or everything at once.
Sortir du Passé
Memories associated with people you used to love and share things with resurface when you come back to certain places. Like a dark turn on the madeleine de Proust.
Casual Tonight
Once, we played in Dijon with lots of legendary and old-school punks. They had incredible looks, leather, mohawks and crazy neon raggedy clothes. Next to them, we were just our plain old selves (although some of us in the band have more style haha). but it was fun. So it’s a fun song about not looking the part, and feeling boring-looking.
Continued below…
Remue-Méninges
It’s a weird song about how the negative feelings that you try to hide and keep inside will eventually snap back at you anyway. But you can also interpret it as a song about constipation or bowel troubles, I guess.
Nique Tout
Powerful and rich people destroy the planet, but let’s not pretend that they don’t realise it. They know it and they don’t give a flying fuuuuck. (#sorrynotsorry)
Mickey Club
It’s the only song in english and it’s actually more like one chorus repeating itself. It’s about recurring fights with someone you love. It keeps happening and you start doubting it’s ever going to change.
B.F.F
Friendships are so precious and help you get through rough times. Pouring your heart out without ever feeling judged feels good. Friends are the best.
Perspective for live shows
We will see what’s going on in the following months. Hopefully we can go places and play our new stuff , but it seems hard to make plans for the future in these awkward times.
For now, every gig and festival that we had planned are on hold, since nobody knows when we’re be allowed to go out again…
The optimistic plan is to play some gigs in France from September onwards.
Lyon is a pretty active city in terms of DIY bands playing in and outside of town, recording records…
Several bands are now quite “old” (for here at least, where there always have been plenty of bands but with a kind of short longevity). You can check FAUX DEPART and ZONE INFINIE : both of them just put out new records, good punk rock sung in french, with interesting lyrics about living in big cities, sometimes feelings of boredom and anger.
Other cool bands are also BLEAKNESS, CONTRACTIONS, TOP SECRET, DERNIER FUTUR,… A new exciting band that just put out a demo tape is SCIMMIA, pure punk rock
There is also URSA and DELETAR (half from Lyon), bands who have common members with Litige.
We share a rehearsal space in Grrrnd Zero with some of these bands. Grrrnd Zero is a local venue, that provides dozen of rehearsal spaces, an exhibition room, riso and screenprinting workshops…
Lyon has a thriving DIY scene, differents venues like bars hosting punk shows
But nowadays with the increase of rent costs and neighbors complaints, shows are less and less happening downtown, except for a few bars, like Le Trokson, although it burnt a few months ago… Real bummer, but it should open soon again though ! We are happy to be surrounded by different inspiring people and bands, and maybe this is also an influence of what Litige is, in terms of sound, aesthetics and hopefully energy.
Releases from early 2020 or late 2019 that we love
“Hot and Flustered” LP (Statick Shock Records) by COLD MEAT (punk from Perth, Australia)
” Dans la plaine” LP (Broderie Records) by TAULARD (synth punk from Grenoble, France)
” All or Nothing” LP (FatCat Records) by SHOPPING (post punk from London and Glasgow, UK)
“Must be Nice” LP (Drunken Sailor Records and Stupid Bag Records ) by DARK THOUGHTS (punk rock/Ramones a go go ! from Philadephia, US)
“Pizza House” demo tape (Of Bits and Pieces Records) by PARKING LOT (punk garage from Leipzig, Germany)
« Speed Kills » first LP ! (Static Shock Records) by CHUBBY AND THE GANG (Timeless Speedy punk from London, England)
« Riki » (Dais Records) by RIKI (dark synth-pop from Los Angeles)
« What’s here to eternity » LP (W.25TH / Superior Viaduct) by CINDY LEE (weird dark lo-fi pop from Toronto)
