Lille, France-based oi! punk band Traitre have banging out releases consistently since 2014, and now Une Vie Pour Rien has seen fit – together with a couple of other labels – to make our lives easier and compiled everything onto one handy discography. In recent years, France has been producing absolute world-class oi! bands, so it\’s going to be hard to stand out from the crowd, but Traitre do their damned best and they are pretty much up there with the best of the short-cropped bands of today. Their sound is of the timeless variety with a lo-fi production and nods to various periods of musical heritage from the late 70\’s through to today. I could almost imagine this being recorded at Inner Ear Studios, Washington DC in 1982 – jumping into the recording booth when someone like SOA or Iron Cross had gone out for some food! It\’s got that pots\’n\’pans feel to it, raw and relentless with the guitars struggling to stay in tune and drum skins just one beat from being trashed from one song to the next, with all emotions laid bare. As the discography progresses you can hear a wider range of influences creep in, with more melancholic guitar lines and backing vocals – almost as if we have skipped to 1986 when that rage has become more introspective but no less powerful. This is my first exposure to Traitre and this compilation is the perfect way to catch up if like me you have been missing out. Tom Chapman