French psych/noise trio detail the songs and artists that influenced their second LP, Alien, out now on Fuzz Club

Earlier this year we signed the French, Rouen-based trio Servo for their second album 'Alien'. Out in the world now, the record deals in the kind of dark, psychedelic noise-rock that storms with ease between gloomy, hypnotic moments and bouts of powerful, motorik noise. Arriving following their 2016 ‘The Lair of Gods’ LP and a handful of EPs and singles, the seven-track collection finds an unstable home between heavy, distorted drones and gothic post-punk; forlorn, jangling guitars and deep, austere vocals breaking down into piercing blasts of feedback and noise.

You can read more about 'Alien' and the stories and theme it touches in this feature on the Fuzz Club blog. With the album now unleashed for human consumption – in the form of vinyl, here – we got everyone in the band to talk us through the songs and artists that shaped the new record and the band themselves. From The B-52s, The Beatles and Queens of the Stone Age to Dead Skeletons, A Place To Bury Strangers and DIIV, here are the eleven tracks that have left a mark on the dark, reverberating and often-sinister sounds that lurk on Servo's latest full-length, 'Alien'.

Hugo Magontier (drums/vocals)

Dead Skeletons - Ljósberinn

“From an album we all really like and that influenced us a lot. This song particularly is one of my favorites. The floor tom at the beginning will always be some kind of a base for me when I’m trying to make my tom sound good.”

The B-52’s - Rock Lobster

“This song can be heard as something very simple, but there is a lot of information, there’s always something happening, many weird sounds everywhere. That could have made it a real mess, but it’s not.”

Radar Men From The Moon - Splendor of the wicked

“I like the fact that they managed to create a whole song almost only from rhythmics. The drum pattern is quite simple but very effective, and that’s the kind of thing I like to do. It doesn’t have to be very technical, you just need to find the trick that will make it different from what could be expected.”

The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows

“There is a lot of things to say about this song, but I really like that the drum pattern is very simple, but very uncommon at the same time. And that is the way I like to play the drums, so that it isn’t only a support but can add something interesting to the song, and can even take it somewhere it wasn’t supposed to go.”

Arthur Pierre (guitar/vocals)

Holograms - Lay Us Down

“I love this song from the album Forever. I like the powerful and rousing voice of the verse. I also really like the way the bells sound on the first three beats of every measure of the chorus.” 

Queens of the Stone Age - Regular John

“The guitars and bass are loud from the start and the drum makes the whole thing go straight and the choir-like vocals of Josh Homme brings the song to another level.”

DIIV - Oshin (Subsume)

"I love the whole album Oshin from DIIV but my favorite track is probably the song Oshin (Subsume). There are some explosions and gun-fire sounds on the background when the song begins and then there is a rising of choirs just after the first verse and that's exactly the way people want a song to be built: first gunfire sounds and then explosion of choirs."

Louis Hebert (bass/vocals)

Sonic Jesus - Transpose

“These drums and bass are excellent. I like when the bass follows the drums, or the other way round and you don't know what came first. And I really like the way the bass sounds. That's how a bass should sound. Low tone but with a good attack.”

The Frozen Borderline - What Is Lost

“It's one of my all-time favorite bass lines. It's a discreet bass that sounds like the heart of the song behind the guitar melody. This alternation between the deep groove and the more linear high notes is magical. I often think of this line and I often try to play this way.”

A Place To Bury Strangers - Onward to the Wall

“On this track, it's a totally different way to play bass. It's the bass that does all the melody of the song, leaving the guitar with all the space it needs to make the noise.”