Electric Arguments

We Say...

Review by Yancey Strickler

Here are the two things you need to know about the Fireman and Electric Arguments: 1) It is a Paul McCartney project and 2) It's so good we can't understand why he even bothered to release the dull-to-average Memory Almost Full a couple years ago. In fact, here's how much we love this record: its closest relative is Ram, aka Macca's best solo record ever (McCartney is a very close second; note that we're not counting Wings stuff), in that it's highly ambitious, very scattered and all the better for both. We're not about to proclaim this McCartney's "Best Moment in Decades!" or any other Goddess in the Doorway-type b.s., but we will offer that we can't imagine any Paulettes being disappointed by this record.

The Fireman is not a solo McCartney project; his collaborator for the past 14 years (there have been three Fireman albums) has been Killing Joke bassist Youth. The previous Fireman albums — both completely instrumental — felt like Youth was the one steering the truck: their immersion in ambient techno and other electronics drew a clear lineage from Killing Joke's industrial edges, and displayed little McCartneyism. On Electric Arguments, all of that changes. Certainly it's more experimental than we expect from Paul (the droney, "Tomorrow Never Knows"-ish "Lovers in a Dream," to name one), but the core of Electric Arguments draws from his impeccable melodic sense.

It's from there that we get "Dance 'Til We're High," which could have been Echo and the Bunnymen's biggest hit. It's a miraculous song: beginning with girl-group snare and tom cracks, shifting into verses guided by a tight, lower-register melody, opening up wider with an incredible pre-chorus as Macca's tenor cracks through and then erupts — yes, erupts — into a chorus that knows nothing of limits or ceilings or stratospheres. It just goes up and up and up. It will stun you it's so good. This is no hyperbole.

Just as "Dance 'Til We're High" knocks us down with its beauty, "Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight" does the same with its power and aggression. It feels like a midpoint between "Helter Skelter" and John Lennon's scathing (and McCartney-directed) "How Do You Sleep?," a big, buzzy, chunky thing that doesn't move, it churns, drilling itself deeper and deeper into place.

"Nothing Too Much" is definitely an outlier on the album; the rest sits between the fierce urgency of that track and the songwriting virtuosity exhibited in "Dance 'Til We're High." Not every song is amazing, but all are great. And, most importantly, not a one dips into that maudlin ditch Paul's lodged himself into in recent years. We have no complaints about Electric Arguments, and neither will you.