A handful of 45s on foreign labels, including the prestigious American label ROB'S House (the original label of the Black Lips), along with extended tours all over the world, have already established the Perpignan band JACK OF HEART as one of the reference groups of ghetto rock and roll.

With this first album, JACK OF HEART plans to broaden its audience. The band shows a maturity in songwriting that is fairly unprecedented in the French rock and roll scene.

Admittedly, JACK OF HEART claims the psychedelia of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, the legacy of the Velvet Underground, and the songwriting of Lee Hazlewood, but they transcend these influences to assert a singular rock'n'roll that flattens the codes of a garage folklore that is often too regressive and backward-looking.

While the band shifts from hallucinatory psychedelic ballads (Petrus Complains, Waiting for the Shit to Fall) to twisted, vicious garage-punk tracks (Love in Vain, More, Pony Crap), they never sink into clichés.

Carried by the velvet voice of the charismatic Piero Ilov (a lookalike of Patrick Dewaere: same face, same build, same strange air), JACK OF HEART is also worth seeing for an explosive live show honed alongside the Black Lips, Magnetix, King Khan and the Shrines, and BBQ. For the record, Piero has played and still plays in Les Fatals, the Mighty Gogo Players (In the Red), and the Demon's Claws (In the Red). The band also includes members of Yussuf Jerusalem and Hulks.

We almost forgot: the album was produced by Piero in his mother's living room, on a crappy 8-track. Astonishing, isn't it? Then again, this isn't Piero's first attempt... He was notably the craftsman behind the sound of the Sonic Chicken Four (In the Red) and Les Fatals. Piero may well be, without knowing it, the best French rock'n'roll producer...

Released August 21, 2009