Bukowski

After an album that served as both a catharsis and a transition into a new era, bukowski is back, stronger than ever with Cold Lava. A return to basics, or almost, because simply repeating a tried-and-tested formula would have been too easy.

Cold Lava is above all the first album recorded by bukowski with their latest line-up, which has been stable and complete for three years now: Mathieu (guitar-vocals), Romain (drums), Clément (guitar) and Max (bass).

The latter actively participated in the composition and lyric-writing, the result of a true collective effort lasting nearly a year and a half.

To reconnect with a truly organic sound and put themselves in the best possible conditions, the band called upon Francis Caste to produce this seventh album (the fourth he has produced for Buko), resulting in two months of hard work in the studio.

The objective was clear: to capture unifying tracks that, once on stage, get the crowd headbanging. As Francis Caste sums it up: "Bukowski is an aircraft carrier on the Canal St Martin".

While bukowski's universe still sits somewhere between stoner and hard rock, spiced up with a healthy dose of groove, the band has this time added more alternative and ambient sounds, with a hint of Thrice, and to a lesser extent Thursday and Alexisonfire.

Buko remains Buko, but this evolution brings a breath of fresh air to music that remains intense and hammered out with conviction. The tracks are shorter but varied, designed to make people move and dance, while staying true to the most intoxicating headbanging.

The album opens with the high-octane rock track "Headlights", and features numbers like the melancholic mid-tempo "Cold Lava", the groovy "Neverending Fall", and the first single "Criminals", with its huge opening riff and wall of guitars.

The record also welcomes Reuno from Lofofora on "Communication In Silence", delivering a few scathing lyrics in f