Send back those “Freedom Fries,” because all ill-conceived notions of the French as mere pacifists will be burst courtesy of this reissue, an essential compendium of blister-pack post-punk available domestically for the first time. Using an overdriven synth as a proto-drum machine, Metal Urbain flew skuzz sorties, piloting strafing flurries of static back and forth across the English Channel in the mid- to late ’70s. Rough Trade, indeed. Inspired by the Stooges, Brian Eno and Lou Reed, and inspiring the likes of The Jesus & Mary Chain and Big Black, Metal Urbain welded roughly tenderized textures to spare power chords and friction-fused, piston-pumping rants that regularly threatened to seize as they snarled. While contemporaries such as New York’s Suicide were putting rockabilly beat poetry to a taut throb, Metal Urbain were metronomic maniacs. Call them French fried.