The Man On The Burning Tightrope

The fourth Firewater album, The Man On The Burning Tightrope, builds a huge circus of the absurd that combines cabaret, revue show, fairground and theater. The tent roof is black, the lighting is sparse, and the director stands in the ring and presents absurd stories, confused thoughts full of irony and emotion, tragicomedies full of cynicism, great dramas and socio-political sideswipes.

The band plays completely shaken up alternative rock, on whose crumbled foundation art rock, funfair music, Kurt Weill themes, cop-shoot-cop legacies, jazz particles or twisted pop find their places. And then there are the eloquent, vivid lyrics penned by Tod A.: “Because it’s such a cold day down here in hell/And it’s such a long way, a long way to heaven/But it’s okay because we’re singing with the angels”, he sings in the hopeless love song “Anything At All”. Even in “Dark Days Indeed” (“We don’t know who put this cup of life into our hands/But when we go our bones will bake upon the burning sands”), the dark clouds do not clear.