The Scaramanga Six – ‘Walking Through Houses’ (single review)
Finding original bands in the murky sea of Libertines copycats and interchangeable punk-pop acts is about as easy as finding appropriate use of irony in an Alanis Morissette lyric. To the cynics among us, everything has already been done. The cycle of music is such that genres that the media proclaimed dead years ago are enjoying something of a rebirth through retro-hungry post-modernists. The hyper-commercial state we now live in, however, ensures that these genres are largely only mass-marketable, watered down versions of their former selves. Punk, for example, isn't dead, but you have to know where to look to find torch-carrying artists with real conviction and purpose. The mainstream music press are content to pump us full of whatever sells. And right now, nostalgia is what sells. Progression, at least in the mainstream, is the only thing that's dying.
Enter Leeds-based five-piece The Scaramanga Six. Like an industrious Dr Frankenstein, their approach to music is to rework and reappropriate several different styles of playing that don't often find themselves side-by-side. 'Walking Through Houses', the lead single from their forthcoming album 'A Pound of Flesh', is a potent cocktail of haunting, overdramatic vocals, eerie guitarwork and carefully layered doses of string accompaniment. Like the bastard child of Danny Elfman and Freddie Mercury, it's equal parts deranged theatrics and pompous melody. It builds from it's subdued beginnings to burst into a crunching guitar riff that drives the song onwards. Despite it's twisting and turning it never loses focus, and maintains a ghostly, detached feel right to the death. Lyrically, it's not the strongest, with eccentric talk of women in dressing gowns, but what it lacks in wordplay and insight it more than makes up for in mood.
The B-Side, 'I Can See A Murder', struggles to make as grand an impression (presumably that's why it's the B-Side...) but follows a similar formula to it's predecessor, kicking off with a 'Knights of Cydonia'-esque gallop before diving headlong into a bizzare spoken-word tale of sinister graveyard goings-on, accompanied by some razor sharp guitar riffs and twinkling piano. It's interesting, but doesn't hit the mark in quite the same way as the lead track. Nevertheless, this is a band that dares to take the road less travelled, and this is a commendable attempt at making bold music with artistic intent and creative worth.
By Rob Dand
Release Date: 19/5/08
Label: Wrath
www.myspace.com/thescaramangasix
Click here to read more Scaramanga Six related news, reviews & interviews!
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Bookmark and share this page with:Enter Leeds-based five-piece The Scaramanga Six. Like an industrious Dr Frankenstein, their approach to music is to rework and reappropriate several different styles of playing that don't often find themselves side-by-side. 'Walking Through Houses', the lead single from their forthcoming album 'A Pound of Flesh', is a potent cocktail of haunting, overdramatic vocals, eerie guitarwork and carefully layered doses of string accompaniment. Like the bastard child of Danny Elfman and Freddie Mercury, it's equal parts deranged theatrics and pompous melody. It builds from it's subdued beginnings to burst into a crunching guitar riff that drives the song onwards. Despite it's twisting and turning it never loses focus, and maintains a ghostly, detached feel right to the death. Lyrically, it's not the strongest, with eccentric talk of women in dressing gowns, but what it lacks in wordplay and insight it more than makes up for in mood.
The B-Side, 'I Can See A Murder', struggles to make as grand an impression (presumably that's why it's the B-Side...) but follows a similar formula to it's predecessor, kicking off with a 'Knights of Cydonia'-esque gallop before diving headlong into a bizzare spoken-word tale of sinister graveyard goings-on, accompanied by some razor sharp guitar riffs and twinkling piano. It's interesting, but doesn't hit the mark in quite the same way as the lead track. Nevertheless, this is a band that dares to take the road less travelled, and this is a commendable attempt at making bold music with artistic intent and creative worth.
By Rob Dand
Release Date: 19/5/08
Label: Wrath
www.myspace.com/thescaramangasix
Click here to read more Scaramanga Six related news, reviews & interviews!
Buy Scaramanga Six CDs & Vinyl
Buy Scaramanga Six MP3s
Buy Scaramanga Six Tickets
Buy Scaramanga Six Merch
