Triggerfinger - By Absence of The Sun

Never change a winning team. It was obvious that Triggerfinger would travel to Los Angeles again for two months for the follow-up to 'All this Dancin' Around' (2010) to check into their beloved Hollywood Downtowner Motel and once again to record with producer Greg Gordon, by now more or less the 'fourth Triggerfinger member'. One difference: the scene of the crime was not the Sound City Studio as last time (the 'Nevermind' studio has since been closed down) but the equally legendary Sunset Sound studio on Sunset Boulevard (Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, etc.).

Songs, sexiness, seventies, blues, glam, swaying hips, handclaps, coarse-grained noise and grooves that mercilessly aim for the diaphragm: 'By Absence of the Sun' is an album that once again raises the biggest Belgian rock group of the moment to a higher level. The album is the urgent result of months in which Ruben Block, Monsieur Paul and Mario Goossens experienced unprecedented climaxes, but were also confronted with all kinds of downsides. Ruben Block: 'We had trucks full of good vibes over us: did crazy festivals. Stadiums in Germany. But at the same time, intense things happened in my family home, loved ones got sick. What should I do with all that contradiction? I often consulted Greg Gordon: the fact that the album became one energetic whole is to his credit. Because there was still a melancholic album in me.'

Shamelessly sexy jukebox songs like 'Perfect Match' and 'Black Panic' slalom around doubtful, but always hopeful numbers like 'Splendor in the Grass', 'Halfway There', 'Trail of Love' and the title song. The three agree about the music on 'By Absence of the Sun'. Ruben Block feels a lot of ZZ Top in his riffs, Mario Goossens thinks the atmosphere of the record is very Roxy Music, Monsieur Paul hears echoes of the tongue-in-cheek chic of Robert Palmer. All gentlemen in suits, no coincidence. Monsieur Paul: 'Triggerfinger is: opening a van full of amplifiers and cables and instruments, with a row of suits in between. Suits, but with big sweat stains.' A sweaty suit, it is the ultimate contradiction that 'By Absence of the Sun' captures.