Vim Fuego French humour can be a bit hard to understand for non-French people. It takes huge chunks of absurdity and mixes it with social commentary, word play (“jeux de mots”, often untranslatable to other languages), and elements of what-the-fuck weirdness. Those of us who aren’t French can laugh along with the bits we do get, but we aren’t getting the full burn. However, not getting the full joke isn’t a problem when the bits you do get are actually really fucking funny. Take “Panzer Surprise!” here as an example.

You’re not going to expect anything too intellectual from a grindcore band called Ultra Vomit which has produced a previous album called “M. Patate” (Mr Potato), and another called “Objectif: Thunes” which has a piss take of a power metal album cover. And piss-taking absurdity is exactly what you get on “Panzer Surprise!”

(Now, a warning: my French isn’t too good. I used to take French at school mainly because the teacher was hot, and I was a horny teenage boy. I remember a few things, like merde is French for shit, fantôme means ghost, and saying “j'aime tes seins” to a girl is not very polite (it means “I like your tits”, and that was the last time I ever said anything in class when I didn’t know what it meant first!) Due to my linguistic deficiencies Google Translate has been used extensively here. If there are any language fuck ups, blame the interweb, not me!)

The funny starts with the cover art. “Panzer Surprise!” has a cartoon caricature of the band riding a tank through the Looney Toons famous end card, presumably squashing Porky Pig. That’s all, folks!

Intro track “Entooned” previews the musical madness here. Yes, the name is a play on Entombed, and you get a death metal version of the Looney Toons theme song.

Second track “Kammthaar” is more Rammstein than Rammstein. It has a massive martial main riff, a chantable chorus even if you don’t understand the language, it has the solemn almost-spoken breakdown, choral backing. It seems quite earnest and meaningful until you realise kammthar is a word play on the word “camtar”, or van. Yep, it’s a Rammstein style song about driving a truck.

Next comes “Un Chien Géant”, which literally translates to “A Giant Dog” (I guessed that even with my stunted French!) and is apparently in the style of French metal band Tagada Jones. Not heard of them, so not sure how accurate the parody is – it’s probably one of those jokes only the French would get. And the whole album continues like this. “Takoyaki” starts out sounding like a System of a Down parody, then the song breaks down, and out come the Japanese kawaii vocals a la Babymetal. “Super Sexe” is a dance club (maybe a strip club?) and it inspired a cowpunk song. “Hyper Sexe” is just the word “sexe” repeated 124 times. “Le Train Fantôme” is about a trip on train 666, a ghost train.

The next obvious parody is “Calojira”. It it’s a note-perfect homage to Gojira, combined with the lyrics of French singer/songwriter Calogero. Er, except Ultra Vomit shoot a seagull mid-song.

“Jésus” is perhaps the sharpest parody on show here. It turns AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” into a slick Christian rock anthem ripping TV preachers, and then somehow morphs into an homage to footballer Lionel Messi. It could be a comment on sport, religion, and mass media, or it could just be a really funny song. “Pink Pantera” almost reaches the same height of absurdity. Yep, the Pink Panther theme tune done Pantera style. And “Pipi Vs Caca”? Straight toilet humour. Not clever, but always funny.

For a grindcore band, there isn’t much grind on this album, so it looks like full on pig squeal pornogrind track “La Ch'nille” was thrown in as a reminder of what these guys can do when they put their minds to it.

And just to wind up this whole crazy, mostly illogical album, “Évier Metal” is a near five minute ode to a kitchen tap or sink, or some combination of the two (I don’t fucking know, I’m not French!) simply because the name Évier Metal sounds a lot like heavy metal. As stupid as it sounds, it’s a fucking banging straight up trad metal anthem.

All in all, it’s really best to just listen and enjoy, and not try too hard to understand exactly what these guys are on about. Making “Panzer Surprise!” a covers album would have been too easy and a bit dull. A parody album like this is far superior. Completely fucking insane.