At the tail end of last year a couple of bold singles seemed to come out of nowhere. The band were Paris Suit Yourself, most of whom hail from Bordeaux, yet only formed whilst living in Berlin after hooking up with an American drummer. In keeping with the band’s background, the songs ‘Craig Machinsky’ and ‘Lost My Girl’ didn’t seem to fit in with any current music scene or much else around at the time. If the former was an impressive calling card, the latter was surely one of the year’s best songs. There’s something unhinged about it, in the way that it lurches around, sounding like several songs in one, and really taking off in the last minute and a half when Luvinsky Atche starts screaming with near-religious fervour, while the rest of the band provide something resembling a demented Pentecostal choir, alongside some superbly abrasive riffing. It’s raw, thrilling and utterly fantastic. And it leaves quite a high expectation for the album.

As it turns out, these expectations aren’t quite fulfilled. That’s not to say there’s not a lot to enjoy about My Main Shitstain. The whole thing still sounds like nothing else around, fired by the same ferocious energy that made ‘Lost My Girl’ so good. But it’s sometimes the record’s attributes that brings its shortcomings into clearer view. Although there’s something pleasing about its looseness, its don’t-give-a-fuck attitude and that the band have just gone where their creative instincts have taken them, the result often ends up sounding disjointed and unfocused. Similarly, although the pleasure of Atche’s vocals is just how unrestrained they are, there are times when you’ll be wishing for a little more reining in.

Lyrics are not a strong point – at least the ones in English that I can understand – even if they do throw in stuff like a song about executed anti-Third Reich activist Sophie Scholl. There’s more emphasis on the vocal range than the words, which is fair enough, but it can get annoying, particularly with the sex-chat (and on ‘Surprise’, groans) sprinkled throughout, which is a bit like a comedian spoiling a great routine with a run of puerile knob gags.

It’s easy for me to say that this albums lack of consistency feels like a missed opportunity and that it conspires to be less than the sum of its parts. But it’s unlikely that there’s going to be another record like it this year, which despite the frustrations has so much that makes you genuinely excited about music. There’s a lot of talent rattling around here, and you can’t help but think that with a more restraining hand they’ve got an amazing album in them. Whether that’s the sort of album that Paris Suit Yourself would want to make is another matter.