The press release accompanying this pair of sparkling singles, refers to WRATH as the UK’S “newest and coolest” record label and your reviewer can only concur and urge you to get in at the ground floor as methinks this elevator’s gonna rise pretty damn quickly.
Huddersfield’s SCARAMANGA SIX don’t so much demand your attention as just grab you by the throat and keep squeezing. Of the five tracks here, lead off “Pressure Cage” is brief, stunted and threatening. Relentless rifferama akin to THE STOOGES or a slightly more linear BIRTHDAY PARTY induces convulsions in main vocalist PAUL MORRICONE as he gasps, “I’m lying in a busy street, face down!” with the sort of intensity only CHRIS OLLEY can muster at the moment. In the gutter and spitting at the stars, it seems.
As introductions go, this is both fantastic and about as gentle as a concrete post between the eyes. Slower, but no less menacing are “Singer Of Songs” and “The Stupidest Man In The World.” The former features a crushing chorus offset by swirling organs and at four minutes hits an apocalyptic crescendo. “The Stupidest Man…” meanwhile, proffers a moody, pounding rhythm with scary carny organ flourishes. When Morricone sings: “Each door he opens leads to misery” he sounds like NICK CAVE blacking SCOTT WALKER’S eyes and taking great pleasure in the deed.
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“The Continuing Saga Of…” is a great rumbling juggernaut and your reviewer wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t get whipped into a total frenzy live, but perhaps the best track is “Big In A Small Town.” Here, Morricone doesn’t so much sing of life in the goldfish bowl, but shatter it mercilessly in a magnificent tale of jealousy and revenge. The SIX sound like a squadron of fighter planes revving up during the intro and the whole band positively cook throughout this EP.
Ambitious, theatrical and definitely dangerous to know, THE SCARAMANGA SIX have planted mines beneath pop’s superficial surface and are poised with their fingers on the detonator.
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