The Scaramanga Six - Walking Through Houses (Wrath)
UK release date: 19 May 2008
'Grandiose goth pop' are three words that shouldn't really belong in the same sentence, but once My Chemical Romance opened the floodgates, there was no holding back the hordes. It's also called emo, of course, but most bands prefer that you don't call them that to their face.
As it happens though, The Scaramanga Six only really do 'grandiose goth pop' on the b-side. On Walking Through Houses, they're much more Old School goth, in the tradition of The Mission or the gentler moments of Sisters of Mercy. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but when they go a bit Spaghetti Western on the b-side (as you might have guessed from the fact that two of the band share the surname Morricone), you can't help but feel they got the tracks the wrong way round.
With its nods to Rocky Horror Show theatricality, b-side I Can See A Murder is all together much better than its leader. Genuinely interesting and offering something a bit different, this is where the promise for the future should lie.
