3 out of 5

Label: Perishable Records

Producer: Fire Show

I’m sure you’ve had an experience where circumstances override substance – where the story of how you got from A to B makes B seem infinitely more important than it actually is.  Well, such is the case with Fire Show’s 2nd album, which I had a hell of a time getting ahold of… before I was ordering CDs online and never going outside again.  I had their first album and loved it, and had their third album and really dug it, but couldn’t for the life of me, get their second album.  I would check all the shops around me, indie and major, and be able to find the first or third album, but never the second.  I wasn’t even sure what it looked like or what it was called.  Bear in mind I was sort of strictly store-only on purpose at this point, because I felt like it was a better way to discover music (and I still do, I just don’t work near enough CD shops to make it such a convenient possibility anymore).  I reconnected with an old friend / girlfriend… our music tastes had never really coincided and yet, somehow…. she had the second Fire Show album.  She told me about a great review she’d read about it and then maybe she ordered it…

I was wicked jealous.  My fervor to get the album was renewed.

…And eventually I got it.  I can’t say I remember how… mail-order, internet, actually in a store… but it was totally a trip well worth it, and since she had said rave things about the album, I guess I just… always assumed and felt that it was good.  And don’t get me wrong – it is good.  The Fire Show have a unique sound, definitely a Chicago post-rock but mixed with an off kilter art-rock sound and then filtered through a macabre lyrical sensibility…  Some of the tracks on this record stand out as their best, including the first track, which is what’s sort of misleading when you queue it up.  But the tracks that work are those that are most in common with their first and third albums – angular riffs that build to quirky and catchy and bitter choruses.  A lot of the rest of the album is more experimental with electronic noodling and repeated noises.  The lyrics and music seem to take a back seat to messing with a repeated guitar line or skittery computer beat on these tracks.  Interesting from an artistic standpoint, but stacks up, unfortunately, as filler when buffering these more grabbing tracks.

So stripped of the experience of finding the album, it’s not the duo’s best.  You won’t have heard Fire Show’s sound elsewhere, that I can say, but if you like Seth Cohen’s whine and the bombast of the guitar hooks, pick up their self-titled album for the full onslaught.