The Sheffield Scenester

La Folie, one of Sheffield’s most innovative and original bands are about to release their debut album ‘Risus Sardonicus’ on April 5th but thanks to a chance encounter with producer Paul Tuffs I managed to get a sneak preview of what to expect. The first thing that catches your eye is the outstanding cover design (courtesy of Phlegm Comics) depicting a horrorshow of a circus ring with an impaled sword swallower, a partially dismembered trapeze artist, in fact the list goes on. One thing for sure though... they have to issue this on a T shirt!...in fact I implore them to...I’ll be first in line to buy it! Secondly we come to the title which when Googled gives us the definition; a grinning expression produced by spasm of facial muscles – I’m guessing this is what Batman’s Joker suffered from...but it did go with everything else so far.

I have to admit at this point that their music was alien to me and so had no idea what to expect...so I thought I’d begin at the beginning. Track one opens with the lines ‘Put on a dress and paint on a smile, I’ll sharpen up my blade’, now this pretty much sets the tone for the entire album...loaded as it is with macabre offerings of this calibre. The lyrics are a dish best served with a slightly twisted sense of depravity, albeit slightly humorous; singer Nick Robyn delivers them in a style ranging from a hoarse lament to a sadistically suave croon (depending on the mood of the song in question). What is most remarkable about the vocals is the alarming similarity between Nick’s voice and that of the late great Jim Morrison though sometimes he does slip into Dave Vanian territory for a more ghoulish effect. From a musical perspective it isn’t a simple case of categorizing them as indie, alternative, punk or even Goth since in so many ways they could be any of them and yet they are none, so where do I begin?

Utilizing a plethora of instruments we are gifted a dazzling array of style and genre with plenty of guitar, bass and drums used as the foundation to a wider world of musical experimentation. As layered amongst this are synth’s, glockenspiel’s and accordion’s amongst other instrumentation too numerous to mention. The end result is almost a self-defining genre of it’s own, but in the interests of pinning it down I can allude to three influences which immediately sprang to mind on listening; firstly you have The Doors with their bouncy yet disturbingly surreal poetic tunes courtesy of Jim Morrison and Co. Secondly there is one specific track, ‘Waltz In Black’ by The Stranglers, constructed as it is in a near demented circus tune mixed with rodent sounds throughout and lastly the track ‘These Hands’ by The Damned with its tale of schizophrenic revenge at the hands of a circus clown. As you can see the circus features prominently throughout these, not the modern day politically correct spectacle but the ghoulish feakshow’s of the late Victorian era and on listening to the album the comparison is justified. Their finest track is without doubt ‘Arachnophobia’, it begins with a haunting musical box tune before drums and vocals are introduced, as more instruments are brought to the fore, the music builds and builds as if we are watching a maniacal clown at work reaching a chilling climax as what sounds like a young girl is left singing in a ghostly voice - the nursery rhyme ‘Incey Wincey Spider’! But like a drug induced flashback these images and sounds keep coming back across the length of the album reaching a disturbing finale; in the bonus track as we are introduced to the entire circus – The League Of Gentlemen’s Papa Lazarou would be proud!
With so many quality tracks to choose from, aside from my previously mentioned favourite, there is ‘Apples’ with singer Nick demonstrating what The Doors would be doing if they were around today, then there is ‘Plastic Parade’ with its deceptively jaunty tune, but the list goes on. Suffice to say this truly is one of the most original and enjoyable albums I’ve listened to in a long, long time and since my initial listening it’s taken up permanent residence in the car stereo. A brilliantly phantasmagorical experience that I’ll happily enjoy for years to come; now I can only look forward to their live show at the earliest opportunity!