The Swedes just love to rock n roll in a retro way and The Flare Up hailing from Stockholm are one such example of a band living in the past and refusing to let the spirit of the 70s’ die. Luckily this is not as bad as it could be as the group list their one and only influence on their MySpace page as Leo Sayer, an artist I never really expected to mention in a review. They obviously have a sense of humour and just as well with the flagellating album title and a video of the title track complete with chickens in it! Apparently the band members have all been spread out all over the place; involved in other musical projects I have never heard of, joining up again to record the follow up to 2002 debut album ‘Saints in Sinner City.’
Clichés are hit like the woodblock at the beginning of opener ‘Put It In A Letter.’ This has a garage rock flavour to it and is fast enough to keep my interest. Can’t say I’m a huge fan of singer Manne Svensson’s vocal whoops though but as I said thankfully Leo Sayer he aint. With bands such as Bigelf causing a lot of interest at the moment it’s impossible to write off this style quite yet even if you might want to and The Flare Up seem to have plenty of dates lined up between now and March in places like Italy, Germany and Russia so there is obviously a market for this.
I do not really like the title track, it takes an opening bar that could be The Beatles and with the vocals injecting a touch of glam into things sounds like a bad cover of T-Rex to me. Guess it’s catchy enough but it’s all too slow and whiny as well and is the sort of song that back in the day would have spurred all those horrible Britpop bands to pick up a guitar. Not sure why Whip Em’ Hard does anything but? Luckily it’s all a bit faster after this although it never hits the more upbeat scope of bands such as The Hellacopters who really did put the kick in ass. You can get into the surf guitar strum of the oddly named ‘To Kill A Puerto Rican’ easily enough and laugh at the lyrics of ‘The Rudes’ which are so set in the past they could have ended up on the soundtrack of The Wanderers. I do quite like the 60’s keyboard flavour on ‘Too Many Zombies’ and the rockabilly guitars are again a blast from the past.
This isn’t the sort of CD I am ever likely to listen to again I have to admit, hell I’ve listened to it enough times over the years as it is but I guess The Flare Up do an alright job if you are into this sort of thing. Then again if you are I’m not convinced you would be reading this review on this site.
http://www.myspace.com/theflareup
