Fire Engines - 'Aufgeladen Und Bereit Fur Action Und Spass' (Fast Product America)

Here's a compilation containing most of the Lubricate Your Living Room record I just put back on the shelf, as well as a few extra tunes. It's bookended by the 'Candyskin'/'Meat Whiplash' 7", and 'Candyskin' is about as candied as the Fire Engines ever got, not just because of the melodic signing and relatively accessible lyrics but also due to the presence of a string section. It's a great, gorgeous meeting of orch-pop arrangements and post-punk snot, delivered with just the right amount of sarcasm. Listening to these songs right after just hearing them on the previous LP is actually fun. That's happened a few times throughout this project, with varying results, but this time I really notice a fidelity difference - how much better this pressing sounds than the Pop Aural one. I guess Fast Product America released this attempting to sell the Fire Engines to the American audiences, but I think the band was so short-lived that it barely mattered. Listening to 'Discord' twice in one night makes one really "get" the Fire Engines. And that's essentially all I can say here.

ESG (99)

These six songs are so incredibly strange to behold - trebly, thinly-recorded voices with a sassy, funk/soul edge to them and a super addictive rhythm section, but then the hooks are all missing and it often feels empty.  I mean, this was just a weird band -- all sisters, from the Bronx, playing some form of rock/punk, and it's produced by Martin Hannett on side one and it still feels like a fish out of water, even after three decades of posthumous institutionalisation. ESG don't really fit with any scene - they were a rock band that was danceable, sounding like Rip Rig and Panic in approach but way more simplistic; punk, sure, but undeniably urban; but too amped-up and agitated to fit with soul or funk. This uncertainty isn't really evident in the music, which just feels really honest. The second half of this is live, but it sounds home-recorded -- 'Hey!' ends with a whimper, with a stray guitar note here and there, feeling again like a few layers are missing.  You gotta love bands with a theme song ("Queen of the Ryche", anyone?) and 'ESG' has that too. ESG stood for Emerald, Sapphire and Gold which I guess the artwork illustrated, but for some reason this cover always makes me think of soccer.