French group Nouvelle Vague have never been ones to go with the grain, their bossa nova covers of songs from the 80’s new wave era always seemed to turn heads. In their latest release Marc Collin and Gilles Leguen have compiled some of the best new wave covers of the biggest hits of the late 60’s and 70’s. Amongst the artists covered are The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Doors and Kraftwerk. Blending punk guitars, synthesizers and vocoders the various artists featured reinterpret, improve and murder some absolute classics all in the name of post-punk fun across two discs.

Disc one kicks off with a rocking cover from the Silicon Teens of The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, squelchy synths give this a decidedly modern edge, great work from this fictional group spearheaded by Mute Records creator Daniel Miller. 80’s sensation Devo provide a funky re rub of The Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’, altering their emphasis on the words gives this song a whole new life. This is groovy synth pop with a bit of a cheesy edge, good fun. French artist Ronny gives a nice laidback twist to Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘If You Want Me To Stay’, which was also covered by Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Another heavily covered classic is touched up by Antena in ‘The Boy From Impanema’, definitely not an improvement on the popular Astrud Gilberto version, this spaced out journey failed to impress. There is some rocking guitar work on this album, notably the punk funk in Eltron Motello’s ‘Jey Boy Jet Girl’ and Burt Bacharach’s ‘Walk On By’, covered by The Stranglers. The latter features some serious shredding and psychedelic rock influences with a touch of Doors thrown in for good measure.

Where disc one fails to impress disc two comes up trumps, starting things up with the unmistakable riff from Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’ by The Flying Lizards, this is an absolutely intoxicating version, the school girl vocals and a Moog underlay are fantastic. Things start to move in a more electronic direction with Telex’s cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘Dance To The Music’, lots of vocoders and pumping beats actually sound quite fresh. Karel Fialka’s cover of The Doors ‘People Are Strange’ is a complete trip, more so than the original, unfortunately it isn’t an improvement. Whilst The Slits’ cover of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, which was popularised by Marvin Gaye, isn’t an improvement but it definitely grows on you with some nice wah wah guitar, punky bass underlay and the banshee style chorus. More shredding comes up on Duran Duran’s cover of Bowie’s ‘Fame’, this is a cool version with some serious guitar work throughout. Another Bowie track featured and a highlight is Nico’s cover of ‘Heroes’, her masculine voice reminiscent of the late Ian Curtis of Joy Division. This beautiful rendition of an amazing track features a stereotypical 80’s sax break that seriously rocks.

This album won’t be for everyone, admittedly it took me a few listens to get into it but haven’t put away the second disc since. There are some weak spots on both discs, in particular on disc one and it probably could have been condensed into a one disc release however there is an amazing collection of reinterpretations on here that will give even the most die hard fans another view on their favourite artists as synths and punk guitars are added into the mix. In a word: Hip.