From tragedy, triumph can spring. On the back of their classic 2007 album ‘The Dance of Death’, perennial Leeds outsiders THE SCARAMANGA SIX were recording what should have been their next album (working title ‘A Pound of Flesh’) with Tim Smith from The Cardiacs at Tim’s studio in deepest Wiltshire. All was going well and the songs were taking shape when Tim went to see My Bloody Valentine play one night. Instead of returning safely, Tim suffered a massive heart attack and later several strokes. As I type he’s still gravely ill and undergoing rehabilitation.
Struggling to comprehend this setback, The Scaramangas decided to fight fire with fire. The songs from ‘A Pound of Flesh’ were shelved and instead they wrote an entire new album with former cohort James Kenosha. The resulting LP ‘Songs of Prey’ (2009) was again greeted rapturously by W&H and in this writer’s book was their third classic in a row after 2005’s enormous ‘Cabin Fever’ and ‘The Dance of Death.’
All well and good, yet The Scaramangas still had a ‘lost album’ and as a follow-up to ‘Songs of Prey’ was contemplated, they all realised they couldn’t simply ignore the songs they’d been working on with Tim Smith. A decision was made to re-record the songs with Alan Smyth (Arctic Monkeys, Richard Hawley and Pulp) at his Sheffield studio and the result is the knowingly-titled ‘Cursed’.
I’d just suggested ‘Songs of Prey’ was the third S6 classic in a row. Well, we’d better make that four now. Astonishingly, with ‘Cursed’, this remarkable (and remarkably overlooked) band has yet again upped their personal ante and I’m beginning to wonder if supernatural forces are being conjured to channel the majestic forces of darkness behind these songs.
Make no mistake: ‘Cursed’ is the sound of The Scaramanga throwing the full passionate Monty into these songs, kitchen sink and all. With its’ monster drum sound, Olympic blasts of brass and Julia Arnaz’s sunset-defying guitars leading the way, opener ‘Last Roll of the Dice’ alone is a staggering cinematic statement of intent which simply dares you not to use terms like “Epic” in the biggest capital letters known to man.
From thereon in, ‘Cursed’ is a lavish pleasure. Further string-kissed epics like the psychotic, missing persons tale ‘Quite the Man About Town’ (“here is a picture of my lady wife/ hidden in my jacket is a carving knife/ if you tell me here she is I’ll spare your life”) and the broodingly spectral ‘Rest in Peace’ are the sound of this band at its’ Machiavellian best, while the fabulous, John Barry-tinged ‘Autopsy of the Mind’ takes the idea of wanting to get inside a loved one’s head to its most literal conclusion.
Yet despite the bombast, the Punky aggressiveness that drives The Scaramanga Six remains as lean and lethal as ever. If you entertain the idea that they’ve gone soft for one second, then try the reckless amphetamine energy of songs like ‘Repo Man’ and ‘Damned If You Don’t, Damned If You Do’ – with its’ swooping, JJ Burnel-style bass lunges and brick-wall smacking climax – on for size. Ultimately the self-explanatory ‘Trouble’ (“You want trouble? You’re gonna get trouble!”) spoils for the meatiest fight of all. The sound of grey areas it ain’t. The sound of being taken out by a doodlebug would be a damn sight closer.
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Wonderfully, the two songs that previously sneaked out of the original Wiltshire sessions in 2008 in single form re-appear in super-intense, re-recorded form. Of these, the noose-tight house-breaker scenario of ‘Walking Through Houses’ sounds chillier and more voyeuristic than ever (it makes Peter Gabriel’s eerie ‘Intruder’ sound like the Teddy Bear’s picnic) while the ace ‘I Can See a Murder’ makes like ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ (“There was a man, an ordinary man, who had a little secret in his life/ one summer’s day, he dug a little grave and filled it with the body of his dead, dead wife!”) crossed with Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ and ramps up the tension to a hair-raising degree.
They save the piece de resistance for last with ‘Spent Force’ but it takes a band of exceptionally twisted genius to turn a full-on string and brass-driven vignette to violent self-loathing (“since you left me, my life has fallen through/ it’s taken up with drunken lechery, underhand treachery”) into something that sounds so unreservedly glorious and life-affirming.
Thus, while Tim Smith’s illness remains an absolute tragedy, some of the best medicine he could be given would surely be to hear the songs on ‘Cursed’ coming to such alchemical fruition. Without question the discerning among us would have mourned the loss of these marvellously murderous songs, but now they’re here we’ve all the excuse we need to laud this most resilient of Leeds bands once again. One day the world really will catch up.
The Scaramanga Six online
Listen to the Scaramanga Six at Bandcamp
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