by Mikey (Gillingham, Kent, UK) - Each week I preview an album which I think deserves a listen to and if it's worth to buy, I will cater for all tastes of music from R'n'B to Rock, Hip hop and Pop.
Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
Release Date: 2 February 2004
A first impression - derived from the opening track 'Laura' - is that Scissor Sisters are typically sassy New Yorkers with a preciously high opinion of themselves, and to some extent this is true. 'Laura' is funky, provocative disco-cabaret rock, indirectly descended from the music of Kurt Weill - arcane, grotesque, shadowy, satiric - both in words and sound but there is much more too. Its plea for love closes with a line, which manages to be cruel, funny and desperately sad - "this will be the last time that I do your hair." From the pounding piano that opens the album to the melancholy tinklings that see it out, this is a record that is deeply in love, with music and with life. If the former fact can be a problem - when the band fall into pastiche of the seventies sounds they so clearly adore - the second fact redeems it utterly.
Scissor Sisters show repeatedly that they can mimic almost any sound, but they never merely imitate; instead they use other referents as panels on which they paint their own sound pictures, producing in this album a magnificent polyptych. These songs are strikingly visual - ironic in view of (You Can't See) Tits On The Radio.
In their take on Pink Floyd's 'Comfortably Numb' they sound like the Bee Gees recording a disco track, with a harrowing on-hold noise in the background. There is also the "ah hah, ah hah, ah hah" send up of the all-girl band - more comprehensively essayed in the relentless Spice Girls monotone in Tits On The Radio. This layering of improbabilities - especially given the haunting text of the song - is the aural equivalent of a Roy Liechtenstein, which makes you wonder just how detached from reality it is possible to get.
So, if "Take Your Mama Out" sounds uncannily like Elton John in his early seventies pomp, its beautiful melody and palpable sincerity makes you feel churlish for even noticing. As is typical with Jake Shears' songwriting, here he takes a traditional love song and gives it a gentle twist. It's difficult to imagine any artist short of Morrissey who might suggest mending a broken heart by turning to your mother, and he would never suggest taking her out on the town to get blitzed on cheap champagne.
And while it's true that "Lovers In The Backseat" has the deadpan tones and buzzing synths of a lost Human League classic, the gorgeous line 'would you like a cigarette, or my hand upon your shoulder' lifts it into a tender place Human League could never touch. It's clear that Shears' arch persona hides an all too gentle heart.
The disco numbers are less loveable, and less accomplished. As well as the threadbare joke of "Comfortably Numb", there is the frankly ugly "Tits On The Radio". It's plodding bass and shrill falsettos are not only amateurish but, shockingly for Scissor Sisters, remarkably uncatchy. 'Filthy/gorgeous' is far superior, with its propulsive rhythm and playful melodies suggesting the Bee Gees with brains and sex appeal.
"It Can't Come Quickly Enough" is so different it could be another band, built on gently pulsing techno and a world weary vocal that should come from a man twenty years older than Shears. Even that is left in the shade by the closing "Return To Oz", a heart-shattering elegy to lost friendship and the chaos of crystal meth addiction - "we've left the world with smiles, and clenching jaws". It's unlikely there'll be a more beautiful or tender song written this year.
They may come from a gay, glam rock background and they may come across as outrageous, but Scissor Sisters demand to be taken seriously. When they sound introspective, it may take a little time to discern that they are strafing with pinpoint precision some institution or custom or cultural value - or, more likely, more than one.
At only a little over 40 minutes in length with 2 extra bonus tracks, this CD has perhaps been rushed out prematurely. But, believe me, Scissor Sisters is the next Best Thing. "Scissor Sisters" is the sound of a band beginning to find its own voice. If they survive the hype long enough to find it they will surely astonish us all. Not to be missed.
8/10
Tracklisting
1. Laura
2. Take Your Mama Out
3. Comfortably Numb
4. Mary
5. Lovers In The Backseat
6. Tits On The Radio
7. Filthy/Gorgeous
8. Music Is The Victim
9. Better Luck Next Time
10. It Can't Come Quickly Enough
11. Return To Oz
Bonus Tracks:
12. The Skins
13. Get It Get It
