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First (single-sided) 7" by this French hardcore band from Brest, featuring members of Syndrome 81.
Our take: I’m thankful to Italy’s Hellnation Records for immortalizing this French band’s ripping 3-song demo from last year on vinyl. Mentalité 81 is an offshoot of the French punk/oi! band Syndrome 81 (who, based on Sorry State’s data, has a lot of fans reading this right now), but with an 80s US hardcore-influenced approach. It’s not every day I hear a band with a really clear Minor Threat influence (the most recent one that comes to mind is Japan’s Milk), but I think that has to be what Mentalité 81 is going for, and they knock the ball out of the park. To me, Mentalité 81 actually sounds more like Uniform Choice than Minor Threat, but at the end of the day there isn’t all that much difference. The riffs are fast and precise, the guitar sound is relatively clean, the drummer is fast, and the songs are compact but full to bursting with dynamic stops, starts, and drop-outs. It’s so compact, actually, that these three songs only add up to about three minutes of music, and while it may seem like a waste to make a record with so little music, I’d rather have a little taste than none at all. Hopefully these three minutes aren’t the only thing we ever hear from Mentalité 81.