Tacoblaster releases Digital Fun-Zone!

Tacoblaster is the toybox where Tom Caussade keeps his catchiest melodies. Since 2021, the Bordeaux-based multi-instrumentalist has been crafting a collection of '90s power pop and garage rock tunes packed with fuzzy guitars and hooks you’ll be humming for days, performed live alongside Sabrina Ben Marzouk (bass/backing vocals) and Rémi Tourneur (drums/backing vocals). Just over a year after the release of lo-fi and sun-drenched record Chew Goo Gum-Like Substance, Tacoblaster returns with his fifth album Digital Fun-Zone!, out via French indie labels Flippin’ Freaks Records, Howlin’ Banana Records and Les Disques du Paradis.

Recorded and produced by Stéphane Gillet (TH da Freak, Pretty Inside...), Digital Fun-Zone! follows their first collaboration (‘Tacoblaster’ EP) and captures Tacoblaster’s most genuine and heartfelt version to date. Tacoblaster embraces its kaleidoscopic nature on this record: you can hear echoes of many influences woven together without hierarchy, like a big bag where everything forms a single whole (Girls, Digital Leather, Mikal Cronin, Jay Reatard, Wavves, FIDLAR, Twin Peaks). Curiously, the most striking influence when listening to the album, that of Paul Collins (The Nerves, The Beat), pioneer of a sharp-edged power pop, was actually unknown to Tom, as if the aesthetic kinship had revealed itself instinctively and naturally. Both are drummers and melodists, both driven by the same melodic urgency.

While the 12 tracks highlight Tom’s taste for impactful songwriting, they also let a welcome sincerity seep through the fun of the surf-punk edge. This record reveals a more personal side than its predecessors, with lyrics navigating themes of nostalgia, identity, friendship, and addiction. On 'Pyjama' Tom dives into his anxiety and insomnia, gives voice to the dead watching over the living on 'Sing', celebrates childhood nostalgia in 'Toyland', and laments toxic relationships on the jangly 'Wendy'. 'Plan B', the rawest and most DIY-sounding track, blends the lo-fi garage rock and the synth-pop of Digital Leather with the Australian egg punk of Skeggs. Embracing evident diversity, Tom also showcases his talents as an arranger (the unexpected brass on 'Swirl Girl', the use of taishōgoto and stylophone theremin on 'Outer Space'), and pushed things even further on 'Toxic Surfer' and 'Magic Dog'.