Diablo Swing Orchestra — Sing Along Songs For The Damned & Delirious

I had no idea who or what the Diablo Swing Orchestra were when I picked this album up, but I enjoyed the previous decade's swing revival so I thought I'd give it a shot. Now I wish I hadn't.

I saw the group were from Sweden, so I thought they might be some sort of nordic Cherry Poppin' Daddies or something like that. But it turns out they're an avant-garde metal band.

The follow-up to 2006's The Butcher's Ballroom debut LP gets off to an OK start with "A Tap Dancer's Dilemma," which begins sounding like a metallic version of the classic swing era tune "Sing, Sing, Sing" before more traditional rockabilly, swing and jazz elements come into play along with male and female vocals. It's all downhill from there.

The album also incorporates classical piano, Mexican-influenced trumpet and castanets, military drums, metal breakdowns, horns, gentle string sections, acoustic guitar, eastern European and Russian music and more. The female vocalist sings in an operatic style that I enjoyed when the late New York experimental artist Klaus Nomi did it in the early '80s, but this woman just annoys me. All of these elements are often combined together, and it's just too much.

I'd have to be delirious to want to sing along to this damned album.

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