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Sham Rock

In the past couple of years we have seen a fair few music genre revivals. Many have flitted in and out our lives like a crisp packet blowing past us in the wind; “Oh look, there’s a crisp packet. It’s just like that film, yeah? It’s like dead profound. It just makes me think of my life, innit? Wonder what I’ll have for tea”. Others have followed us around like the smell of dog shit on the bottom of our shoes. No matter how hard you try and get rid of it, that smell will be following you for a while.

From the garage band revival, seeing acts such as the White Stripes, The Strokes, The Vines and a whole host of other bands whose names are prefixed with ‘The’ come to prominence; to the loosely based mod revival bands Kaiser Chiefs, The Last Shadow Puppets and, gasp, The Ordinary Boys: a fair few have seen it as their right to borrow, copy and steal quite liberally what has come before them, for better or worse. And now, beating rather characteristically on the decayed carcass of glam rock is none other than Goth rocker, Wednesday 13.

Known to his mother as Joseph Poole, but known to the rest of us as ‘him from the Murderdolls’, Wednesday 13 has put to rest his numerous other side projects and seen right to try to resuscitate the 1970’s phenomenon with Gunfire 76.

But for a glam rock band, there is no abundance of glam here; in fact, there is a distinct lack of it. Yes, there is rock of sorts but there is certainly not even a hint of sequins nor a whiff of feather boa anywhere. There are no big, flamboyant Marc Bolan-esque gestures and certainly none of the glorious pomp or electricity associated with glam rock in the 1970’s here; it is merely just a run of the mill exercise in creating noises for consumption. The whole thing sounds tired and uninspired and a world away from that carefree, fun and frivolity of that original movement which brought with it so much colour.

As an experiment, Gunfire 76 is rather a failed one.