Swearing at Motorists – Burn Down the Wire EP

Dave Doughman is a tough man to please if Wikipedia is to be believed. According to the website, always an infallible source of information, the Swearing at Motorists singer has seen 16 changes of drummers during the band’s 17 year existence.

S@M were originally formed in Dayton, Ohio in 1995 when Doughman teamed up with Don Thrasher, formerly of lo-fi kings Guided by Voices and since then he’s averaged one new drummer per year. Impressive too considering that “Burn Down the Wire” is the band’s work since 2006.

This four-song EP begins with the lovely Stop, Drop & Roll, which is typical S@M, built around Doughman’s scraggly voice with him strumming away with a beautiful melodic guitar sound. This is trademark ‘motorists. A cover of The Smiths’ “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” gets put through the mincer and comes out rather nicely with the trademark S@M sound – often described as “the two-man Who”. I know I’m supposed to but I couldn’t have put it better myself.

It’s a lovely offering and one that you hope will be followed by more. And more. What the band do best is good songwriting, vocals that are at times angry and at others fragile and a mix of melodic guitar and skuzzy garage rock riffs. Imagine Thin Lizzy mixed with Queens of the Stone Age and you’re close.

Has it been worth the 6 year wait? Burn Down the Wire’s splendid but a mere morsel at four songs short and so hard to judge on that basis. A bit like when you’re thirsty – the quality of the water’s hard to tell with any clarity, you just need to ingest it quickly. Anyway, I’m still thirsty – more please Dave!