Album Review. Fire Engines - Hungry Beat (Acute Records)

Yeah, so i've decided to be a bit more interactive with my blog, chat to my fans and all that (ha!), so this, as form of an introduction, is a review I just did for Amelias Magazine - www.ameliasmagazine.com/amelias_blog - check it.


Seems to me that back in the 80’s there were a whole load of post-punk, art-punk outfits dotted around the country, most of whom are largely forgotten. A prominent concentration of these was centred in Scotland. Somehow though, overshadowed by the continuing success of the very English The Fall and Gang Of Four, bands like Josef K and Orange Juice (both fellow Scots) seem to have fallen by the wayside. More forgotten than all of these, p’raps due to a mere eighteen-month existence, are Edinburgh’s Fire Engines.

They boast all the necessary attributes that’s seen a host of mainstream hugging bands ranging from mediocre to less so – Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and The Futureheads – adopt their angular, feisty, wired, anti-melody. But they sound like anything but the sheeny reinterpretation that’s been jumped upon and made enormous.

Yeah, so I’m on a bit of a downer at those three; and, I’ll admit, four years ago I was kind of digging Franz et al, but the more I’ve investigated their lineage, the more I resent the way it’s been adapted to something lightweight. Take Candyskin with it’s vivid sexual imagery, razor sharp jangle, David Henderson’s vocal squeaks and distortions; or Get Up And Use Me with a cowbell intro, Television lick, pop bass, spazzy screams and repetition; it all sounds so goddamn urgent. Re-adapted for the radio friendly modern age, there’s no bite.

Then there’s the double, Velvet Underground-meets-twisted-guitar-solo instrumental freak outs of Lubricate Your Living Room Parts 1 & 2 which rock and roll like two distorted beasts on the end of the gritty, barely sung, absurdly spiky Murray Slade led title-track.

Make no mistake, this is pop music; sure the lyrics are ambiguous and the mood’s aggressive, but the songs are tight, short and witty. Highly influential too, judging by Bobby Gillespie’s claim that neither The Jesus And Mary Chain nor Primal Scream would’ve existed without them. They don’t make ‘em like they used to.