I was disappointed to learn that Flaming Fire are from Brooklyn. They sound like natives of some grotesque backwoods one-store town with no running water and rampant incest -- the kind of place Leatherface or the townsfolk from The Wicker Man might call home. Songs From the Shining Temple is a chaotic, crazed pastiche with heavy Gothic and Biblical (only the good, gory Old Testament stuff) overtones that sounds like it ought to be chanted while holding hands in a circle around a skyscraping bonfire. Outside of trashcans, is there anywhere to even start a campfire in Brooklyn?
Though they lack rural cred, Flaming Fire's racket succeeds beyond its art school, weirdness-for-weirdness' sake trappings. Why? There are two reasons. One, they're actually entertaining, and two, when the time is right, they can whip out a sincere, catchy song to punctuate the spaces between freak-outs.
Songs From the Shining Temple can be a blast, as long as you approach it with an open mind. If you're feeling low or overly cynical, though, steer clear. Occupying the same Residents-blazed terrain as modern curio acts like SSION and Neon Hunk, Flaming Fire combine loops, drum machine samples, tribal-like drumming, and both rancorous and pretty vocals, alternately male, female, and, uhh, troll or something.
The album's most bizarre moments compel you with a car-crash fascination, but it is Flaming Fire's gift for infectious hooks that lock you in. "The Way You Kill Me (Blood Does Shine)" begins the album with some dangerous sex appeal, as Lauren Weinstein, over a canned, danceable beat, enticingly lists the things ("boiling and bleeding," "haunted howling," "when I'm dying") that are "so hot hot hot hot." The song then bends into an acoustic church camp chant, foretelling the manic, quick-shifting nature of all of the album's eleven songs.
"Goddess of War"'s gentle calmness clashes with the bloody fantasy world of its lyrics. In both sound and subject matter, the song is pure Mary Timony. Patrick Hambrecht handles vocal duties on "Foreign Car," the album's most straightforward folk ditty. Careful -- straightforward for this band still means lyrics like, "That bastard's working for Christ and God's grease monkeys don't play nice."
Not every noisy stunt on Songs From the Shining Temple is a success. I'd feel sleazy giving the stale, Beefheartian grunting of "Kill The Right People" a ringing endorsement. Its shock tactics are neither amusing nor shocking. Meanwhile, "Your Love Belongs To Me" and "Cut the Reaper" capture every context and connotation of the word "annoying." But for the most part, this album is lunatic, moonshine-fueled fun, even if it's from NYC and not the deepest, scariest depths of Appalachia.
