Rejoice! Rejoice! Ring those bells, for another glorious album from the Scaramanga Six is about to drop, and they just keep getting better and better. DEARTH falls hot on the heels of GLUT, released earlier in the year, along with a clutch of some of the most imaginative and mind melding videos, showing a great deal of skill in their innovative use of ai.
For those unfamiliar with their quite voluminous output over 30 years, it’s almost impossible to describe them, but there are references ranging from Scott Walker to The Stranglers, The Fall to Frankie Vaughan, space-hopping from one genre to another, creating a mind-melding mixture of influences into a melting pot of deliciousness.
Opener ‘Last Phonebox In The Street’ has a heavy rhythm reminiscent of The Knack’s hit ‘My Sharona’, on which singer Paul Morricone croons a tale about your past catching up on you. Despite the drum and bass interjections of ‘Waiting For The Rabbit’, it is a ferocious punk song sounding like a healthy cross between The Stranglers and the new wave Hawkwind of PXR5. ‘Another Song’ and ‘Mind Control’ have similar punk-pop tendencies, and if you like things a little more goth there’s the Bauhaus flavoured ‘Our Little Secret’, with hints of Wire and Rema Rema thrown in for good measure.
‘I Enjoy Sitting In My Car At Night When It’s Raining’ is a stand out song for me, although I don’t really know where to start when describing it to you. You’re probably best just listening to it, and check out the incredible video too.
Is that the refrain from “Can’t take my eyes off you” peppering the chorus to ‘Grounded’? Certainly sounds like it…and why not.
There’s a beautiful vocal harmony section in the breakdown to ‘The Sorting’, an otherwise ferocious and tawdry tale about discrimination, but the highlight of the whole album for me is the pagan tinged ‘Sleep Like The Tollund Man’, a creeping malaise of a song, like Tubular Bells meets P J Harvey, that grows into a whirlwind of a chorus before a whispered ending brings it to a close.
Despite the title being a reference to Eraserhead, last song ‘Just Like Regular Chickens’ has more of a Christmas feel to it, especially in its similarity in places to ‘Sing’ by The Carpenters, until of course the epic sweeping guitars take it to ridiculous heights, ending the album with a gloriously heavenly vibe.
In a previous review I happened to mention that the Scaramanga Six were a national treasure, and I haven’t changed my mind. Let them enhance your life and you will thank me for the recommendation. Buy this album, buy all their albums, and go and see them live. You can’t fail to be impressed.
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Review by Andrew Wood
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