| French Kicks The founding members of the French Kicks have all known each other forever. Nick Stumpf and Matt Stinchcomb met nearly two decades ago in grade school and played in bands together throughout high school and college. Bassist Lawrence Stumpf is Nick?s younger brother. In 1998 Nick and Matt met Alabama native Josh at a party shortly after moving to Brooklyn. The bond was immediate and they became the French Kicks quickly thereafter. The emerging dynamic that fueled the artistic success of ?Trial? would test relations between bandmembers, and before entering the studio to record Two Thousand, founding member Matt Stinchcomb decided amicably to leave the group. Reuniting with Trial of the Century producer Doug Boehm, the French Kicks sought to bring a stable hand to a band whose experimental nature and perfectionism can lead to a stressful studio environment. According to Nick, however, ?there was no element of calm. ?We all, Doug included, fell quickly into a resigned, fatalistic doggedness.? Both Nick and Josh put an extreme, almost absurd, amount of pressure on themselves to improve on both the songwriting and production of "Trial". The sessions were long and tense with Doug pushing the band as hard as they pushed themselves. The results are some of the finest, most powerful, and also most beautiful songs by the French Kicks. Two of Josh and Nick?s most pop-oriented compositions, ?Knee High? and Also Ran,? have a power recalling their earlier recordings but a finesse emblematic of their current sound. A highlight of the set is opener ?So Far We Are,? one of the Kicks most soulful songs to date. While the melody and guitar riffs are immediate, repeated listens reveal layers of supporting instrumentation, rhythm tracks, and counter-melodies. Deeper cuts in the album like ?England Just Will Not Let You Recover? and ?Go On? showcase their layered approach to songwriting with various instruments, recognizable and foreign, creating an intriguing landscape for Nick?s melodic ideas. To bring the songs on Two Thousand to a live audience, the French Kicks, who?ve been touring continually since 2001, have added Kush El Amin to assist with extra percussion, second guitar, and a lot of keyboards: ?basically everything we don?t have enough hands to play.? They?ll be on the road through all of 2006 and 2007, and Two Thousand will be released July 18, 2006.
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