The first time I witnessed The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster opening a three-band bill in Cardiff's Barfly club they were like a musical breath of fresh air in a venue otherwise stinking of mainstream rock manure. They'd yet to unleash their frantic 'Hörse Öf The Dög' album but still you got that feeling that the band had something very special about them. Unlike anything else in the UK at the time, this was the sound of musical revolution and it certainly wasn't very pretty.

Album number three 'Blood & Fire' follows some eight years after that debut and six years after the Chris Goss produced 'The Royal Society' and in spite of internet rumours of band members going insane during the process of writing it, I'm happy to report this latest voyage of discovery is as unrepentant as you'd expect from a band who could never conform.

Built largely around two distinct sounds this is the band unfurling its cloak of noise and delivering a black and bleak twelve track soundtrack for the more astute music fan to submerge themselves in, rest assured this is not an album for casual listeners to merely dip their pretty little pinkies into. Of the two sounds it is the jagged gothic stomp of 'Love Turns To Hate' that kicks things off in fine form, a rabid call to arms that continues straight into next track 'Mission From God' with frontman Guy McKnight at his messianic best on both, crooning his bitter sweet lyrics with the conviction of a man possessed.

The band's mellower (and I use this term lightly) alter ego second sound rears its head on 'So Long Goodnight' with some of the best psychedelic enthused goth you'll hear this side of 'The Black Album', yes it really is that good. Once you do get your head around the yin and yang of The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, then you discover their music is much less of a dangerous challenge and much more of a luxurious extravagance. Tracks like 'Under My Chin' and 'Monsieur Cutts' really are the perfect battle hymns for Dalek FM prior to their next Earth invasion, whilst 'I Hate The Blues', 'Don't Ask Me To Love You' and 'Are You Living' brood and smoulder with a dark pop charm unique to the band.

If you want to push your own listening envelope in 2010 there really is only one British band capable of taking you through the pain barrier into realms of uncharted gothic beauty, that band is The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. This is the sound of a band eleven years into their career creating their very own mainstream by fucking fashion and continuing to do exactly what they have always believed in.

http://www.myspace.com/eightiesmatchboxblinedisaster