The first track on The Fire Show absolutely draws me in. "F. Pilate" starts out all loose and shuffling, with a sparse instrumentation of drums, guitar and bass. Forty seconds into the song, though, a cloud of noise sneaks in and totally overwhelms everything else. The noise reigns supreme for about 20 seconds, after which it abruptly ends and the song continues. I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff. I think anyone who's confident enough to write a great song and then completely block it out with noise deserves respect and attention.
Though never again subsumed by noise, "F. Pilate" maintains its loose, traipsing pace, occasionally complementing its austere rock trio orchestration with pizzicato strings. As vocalist M. Resplendent whines, rants and swoons, he reminds me a bit of Perry Farrell. At about the six-minute mark, the song apparently ends, only to start at the beginning again and play on for another two minutes. Formal unorthodoxy like this shows a band that's willing to experiment, a band that's striving for something unique. This is a good thing.
Track three starts out with the line "I had explosion cerebellum, I think it's about time that I should tell 'em." Is this a reference to the very cool Ramones song "Teenage Lobotomy"? In any case, "Explosion: Cerebellum" is simply great music. Resplendent's voice is unabatingly grating on lines like "My voice is broken glass!". The band's penchant for adventure continues here, with a great part where a little electronic interlude wanders around from right to left channel. While it's still bouncing about, the song-proper starts up again -- dead center in the stereo field. This dimensional thinking is quite sophisticated and very cool, especially on headphones. The ending to "Explosion: Cerebellum" is notable as well. Rather than the hackneyed standard fade-out, The Fire Show employs a sort of timbral fade-out. In place of gradually lowering the volume, they gradually increase the volume and the resultant clipping causes the sound to gradually distort into nothingness. It's a clever idea and precisely the kind of non-traditional thinking that makes this record so good.
"Who Do You Love" is a cover of the classic bad-ass blues tune. You know, "I walk 47 miles of barb wire with a cobra snake for a necktie…" The Fire Show's rendition is nothing if not post-modern; it's a sort of loose, aborted effort which takes huge lyrical and idiomatic liberties and has attitude enough to spare. It might not be B.B. King, but it's far scarier than anything perpetrated by a traditional bluesman.
These three tracks alone would make The Fire Show worth owning and yet the remaining six tracks are just as good. I can heartily recommend this disc. Here's to creative, adventuresome post-rock!
