You know that well known phrase, “Go Big or Go Home?” Diablofurs have done just that with their follow up to the magnificent Neon Satellites, forget Madness and their piddly wee House of Fun, and join me in entering the vibrant and colourful City of Fun. If you know Diablofurs, it will come as no surprise that Welcome to the City of Fun is crammed to bursting full of glorious and hugely anthemic electro-synth punk-pop crowd slayers.
The melee of sound that is the hubbub of fairground noise introduces the albums title track, with a warning immediately following with the opening lyric “welcome to the city of fun, but don’t get blown away,” before the Gang of Furs proceed to do just that… Rob, Suze, Becks, Danii and Kay combining to create an injection of adrenaline, their unbounded vitality helping express their message straight to the core of your being, “welcome to the city of a thousand dreams, you can be most anything you want” and creating an hypnotic burst of neon energy.
Diablofurs are here to bring the sunshine, creating a perfect antidote to the incoming autumn as the insistent intro to one of the album’s singles builds and the band crash in with this bright blast of effervescent dynamism burning as bright as the sun, in their Dream Skies. There is no let up as the vigorous vivacity continues into the soaring potency of Crocodile.
Swim Alone initially brings the energy down, but just a bit, and not for long, as this slow burner builds, adding layers of instrumentation to compliment the underlying driving rhythm, before the epic sweeping majesty of Motor Sunrise brings side one of the LP to a close in style, bringing to mind visions of movies ending with open top Cadillacs driving their passengers into a new day and a new beginning…
And that new beginning starts as soon as you drop the needle onto the start of side two, the quietly unassuming intro to Vampires of Rome bursts into life, and the journey from side one and visions of driving into the sunrise flip around to “the last sight of daylight” and “the only lovers left alive – the Vampires of Rome,” the song has a similar sweeping majesty to side one’s closer, with a synth line that takes me back to early 80’s Simple Minds, and an overall almost Clash-like feel to the song.
The 80’s theme continues into Sapphire, with its bombastic intro and pulsating beat, soaring synths, thundering drum rolls and impactful backing vocals “and the angels call…. and the angels fall.” A Spider’s View of the World has an overarching sweeping synth melody over the chorus, the verses underlined by a staccato guitar riff, its closing line “elevator to the stars” serving as an intro to the album’s penultimate song. Goodbye Stars literally flips things around, Rob singing over synths and rhythms played backwards.
The album closes in classic Diablofurs style with Mirrors, a clamorous melee of crunching guitar riffing and machine gun drumming topped with atmospheric synths, a mid song break is backed by spacey synth noise before the band gel together in on last climactic starburst before the hubbub of fairground noise rises again, encouraging you to experience that invigorating thrill ride one more time.
Diablofurs – Welcome To The City Of Fun – (Vinyl LP) | Rough Trade