There are but a few curious cases of a band who is hugely successful in their own country, yet whose albums and singles dropped like a feather-weight into the Anglo- American music markets creating the faintest of ripples.

This parallel of extremes has seen Indochine lauded as underground veterans outside of their native French fandom where they are a legendary stadium-filling mega unit shifting entity.

It’s a baffling binary existence looking at the tracklisting of singles on this portal into this group’s gauche indie music domain. It’s like entering another world of monochrome and chiaroscuro shadings of hipster delights.

Nevertheless, the quality served up is as obvious as that incongruous elephant in the room as this collection should finally increase this Franc-audiophile outfit’s profile.

This compendium of their finest musical fancies should go some way to rectifying this unusual dilemma. In doing so, if not banishing the elephant from the room then in the very least firmly opening and showing it the door.

The inclusion of a new track, plus multiple physical formats offering vinyl, CD and cassette tape makes this a desirable collectable artefact and definitive primer of both a hugely followed yet unusually under the radar well-seasoned oddity.

Indochine
The Singles Collection
7/10
By Paul Davies

About The Author

I began my career in journalism at the now defunct, pre-digital Smash Hits magazine, which was situated in London's Carnaby Street. After learning the ropes, I washed up at Vox Magazine, essentially the NME'S monthly magazine, as the Internet arrived into our lives. Thereon, I eventually graduated onto Q Magazine when people still treasured the magazine that they bought. My journalistic career since has been on newspapers at The Times, The Independent/i newspaper, Daily & Sunday Express and, ofcourse, National Rock Review.