Above the title on the back side of French mayhem rockers Gunslingers’ second album, Manifesto Zero (World in Sound) is the question, “When a Disc and a Head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the Disc?” Each time I’ve sat and listened through this record, which follows in their catalog the critically successful No More Invention, I’ve puzzled over that question. Not because I think a head can’t be hollow – at least in the sense they mean: “Isn’t it possible you’re a fucking moron?” – but a disc is inherently flat. There’s no room for it to be hollow because there isn’t any space in a disc. Especially “disc,” ending with a  ‘c,’ which in this context implies a compact disc. If a disc had space between its two sides it would be a cylinder.

This is my fucking life. These are the things I obsess over.

At least, while I ruminate on these big questions of life I have the recorded-live freakout of Manifesto Zero to accompany, which in a cold post-modern way is very little comfort and yet somehow gets the job done anyway. The six tracks of the album (at about 31 minutes, we’ll call it a full-length because the marketing doesn’t say otherwise) offer a jangly and jagged garage retroism, bouncing murderously through the first several songs until slamming into the 8:15 of “An Eye for a Knife,” which is mean-man noise for a good couple minutes following some deceptive rock simplicity. The fronting work of guitarist/vocalist Gregory Raimo leads this stylish anti-fashion charge, leaving bassist Matthieu Canaguier and drummer Antoine Hadjioannou to keep up, which they do avec enthousiasme.

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