This is a review of "Baggage" recorded by The Scaramanga Six. The review was written by Suzie Mitchell in 2006.

Baggage is unfortunately in possession of the dodgiest 5 second intro in music history and you generally have to stick to the rule that anything which reminds you instantly of The Darkness can not be a good thing. Luckily Baggage manages to claw back a little pseudo cool almost instantly with some low and dirty guitar riffs (invaded by seemingly pointless and annoying violins – why?) but I can’t help feeling that the damage is already done. However when said guitar riffs are then coupled with piano chords that brought images of The Rocky Horror Show bouncing and mincing into my head I started thinking that this is perhaps a band that don’t take themselves too seriously. At least I sincerely hope not as the lyrics are crap and I don’t think I’m being too harsh. For instance “I’m a total package and ya gonna have to handle with care”? They surely must be joking. The rest of the lyrics aren’t quite as cheesy (not quite - they can but try) and don’t sit comfortably on the tongue. The melody and arrangement often seems shambolic and the song doesn’t really gel all of its influences together. Having said that Baggage is quite a lot of fun and I’d be surprised (and marginally disappointed) if you don’t hear at least once down the indie disco.

However what is really disappointing is that it isn’t the B side Vesuvius that takes precedence. Again the band show their aptitude for producing insanely inappropriate intros although this one lasts for 1 minute and 18 seconds for Pete’s sake. If I hadn’t been reviewing it I would have skipped immediately out of shear embarrassment that one of the neighbours might hear it and start steering their children away from me as only a crazy person would subject themselves to such boring musical nonsense. But thank god I didn’t as Vesuvius turned out to be bit of a stomping little gem of a rock song. My number one reason for praising a song is can I: A) bear to listen to it alone, or B) imagine myself jumping up and down to it at the front of a gig? B. Pompous, raucous, thrashy, shouty quality rock song. It won’t win itself an Ivor Novello (but who the fuck wants one since the Spice Girls won one anyway) but its kind of dramatic and nonsensical way that is totally British and entirely charming. I loved it. Kind of the musical incarnation of Russell Brand’s humour. Is the frontman wearing leopard print tights? And if not why not?