The Sinclairs are the side project of The Damned`s Rat Scabies and acclaimed Flipron / Neville Staple guitarist Billy Shinbone. They release a new album this month `The Long Slow Death Of A Cigarette` which follows on from their 2020 debut `Sparkle` and on this release they have been aided by the of addition of a number of guest vocalists.
The album opens with `If You Don’t Want To Watch This Don’t Open Your Eyes` which features Zumi Rosow of The Black Lips on vocals and it`s a slow paced almost sleezy slice of laid-back garage rock that has the power to really draw you in to its dangerous grasp. We enjoy a brief but fairly enticing slice of instrumental garage rock with a hint of surf rock on `Ultra Splendid`.
The wonderfully titled `Origami Chainsaw` is just under three minutes of a kind of Latino or Hispanic tinged garage punk and feels as if it belongs in a Tarantino movie. Kid Congo Powers of The Cramps/Gun Club/The Bad Seeds heads up the vocals on `The Colonel` where he shares a kind of spoken word diatribe on the unsavoury characteristics of the title`s subject. A delightful edgy slow burn of a track.
I suppose `My Pet Maggot’s Bluebottle Dreams` is a surreal kind of ambition of sorts for this fly larva and is a retro vibed slice of instrumental jangly rock with what could well be tinges of organ or synth and i`m sure a brief middle eastern flavour early on. To me there was a sort of old-time country feel to `Him And His Mermaid Girlfriend` which begins with echoes of the seaside with a variety of coastal noises added on route.
`Too Much Time` features Yoshikio Fujiyama and Akiko Omo members of Japanese garage punksters The 5,6,7,8’s and is a dreamy retro sixties-tinged pensive reflection which has some enchanting guitar chords spliced throughout. At one hundred and twenty seconds long `Transmissible Vices` is a number that seems to build up to a perceived certain explosive eruption but instead ends quite abruptly.
The bizarrely named `Cellphone Lost In The Arctic Tundra` seems to have an icy chill running through it and feels like it`s been lifted from some retro Television detective series apart from the segment at the end when the phone actually springs to life. English actor and comedian Kevin Eldon (Hott Fuzz/Game Of Thrones) adds laughter, screams, and shouts to `Monkey’s Tails` a delightfully dreamy slice of garage rock with wavering and distorted guitar chord riffs.
The thoughtful and reflective `How Much Is The Dust? ` has legendary octogenarian rock vocalist Roger Chapman from the iconic prog rock band Family adding his deep and dusky tones to this brooding submission. The album closes out with `Dante’s Funeral` and it`s a weird eulogy with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure.
`The Long Slow Death Of A Cigarette` is an interesting listen and the choice of selected guest singers seems to work really well. It`s predominantly a garage rock inspired outing but I felt there was something here for everybody and running at just a touch over thirty minutes in length there`s no excuse not to spend an hour having a couple of listens to it.
Rating 8 / 10
