This review is taken from the same issue of The Independent as the review of the Mars Volta record from a few weeks back. I went ahead and loaded it up for this feature knowing that the title of the record was nicely well-suited for the way I’d feel as the closing of one of my most demanding work-weeks of the year was coming to an end.

Led by former Cop Shoot Chop bassist Tod A., Firewater made a pebble-sized splash with their last effort, 2001’s Psychopharmacology. Much of this follow-up sounds as if they took the Tom Waits drunken circus and gave it cold shower and a couple cups of coffee. And then merged it with the devil’s favorite merengue band.

Tod A.’s crunching gravel voice and generally grim sensibilities ensure a certain dancing-in-the abattoir feel and it’s not hard to feel a goofy rush of bleak glee when he successfully turns the appropriately titled “Dark Days Indeed” into a jaunty romp. That doesn’t fully save the record from late-album weariness when the joke has been gotten, or the occasional blatant misstep, such as “Too Much (Is Never Enough),” which veers uncomfortably close to Smashmouth territory with its lockstep hook and happy organ undercurrents. You can’t accuse Mr. A. of complacency but, by the end, it’s clear he’s burning this tightrope at both ends.