Fires Of Rome, You Kingdom You
New York glammers tap into some idiosyncratic corners of '70s rock
It's hard to tell which generation of androgynous rock New York trio-plus-friends Fires of Rome are aiming for; the best hypothesis might be '00s alt-glam of the Placebo ilk. (Franz Ferdinand? Rapture? White Stripes, even? You decide.) But if that's the case, what they end up with flexes way more classic muscle. As becomes clearer toward album's end, these guys have maybe inadvertently managed to recreate a high-register sector of '70s hard rock that feels simultaneously meat-and-potatoes and idiosyncratic: Sparks or Slade in ragtime-revival mode in "But You're Such a Cherry"; tough urban greaser boogie in the subway-and-alley admonition "I'll Take you Down"; some gender-confused Marc Bolan/Grace Slick hybrid swishing about running the white-collar rat race as blooze guitars flesh the sound out in the final cut, "Monkey In A Cage."
Oddly, You Kingdom You starts out more tentative and vocally distanced and less coherent. The fey string counterpoint in the laid-back opener "Dawn Lament" seems cribbed straight from the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony," and the huge "My Sharona" drums setting off "Set In Stone" can't salvage its geeky funk attempt. But by track four, a fast-rolling circus-glamster called "Songs As Yet Unsung," energy kicks in. "Bronx Bombardier" is deep-rhythmed reggae-rock built on an immediate-impact hook rhyming "I'm not sober" with "October", and "Love Is a Burning Thing" could almost be a pre-Buzzcocks Pete Shelley trying out for the burnout baseball team — y'know, like maybe using those bats from The Warriors.
