Album: 'Strike! Up the band' – The Scaramanga Six

Label: Wrath Records
Released: Feb 03
Web: www.thescaramangasix.co.uk + www.wrathrecords.co.uk

Fire in the disco! Yorkshire sextet The Scaramanga Six might well be a tad miffed at the success of  Electric 6's brilliant number 2 hit 'Danger! High Voltage.' TSS have been making music like this since the mid 90s, then all of a sudden a record encapsulating their sound in 3 minutes appears.  'Strike! Up the band' would appear at first to basically represent this single stretched across a whole album. The similarities between the two bands are clear: The abundant use of the exclamation mark, the suitably deranged song titles ('You Do, you die!' 'Too Cool for Skool'); even the band members' names - I give you Dr John Gulliver on the organ, Jenny Jet Harris on guitar. 'Elemental' even contains excitable cries of 'the flames getting higher!' over a fervid garage-punk soundtrack. However, an even more demented version of The Cooper Temple Clause summaries things a little more accurately. It'd probably be easier to say what's NOT here. TSS seem to love it most things-David Bowie impersonating vocals, dense organs and doleful slide guitars: and often all to be found in the same song. In all, It's difficult not to fall for The Scaramanga Six's gloriously over-the-top hullabaloo.

7/10, Matt Tomiak