What is it about the Scissor Sisters that has so effortlessly captured the zeitgeist of the day? The UK Press can’t get enough of them, though before the phenomenal success of their eponymous debut, they were a relatively obscure underground gay electro edged band out of New York.

Thing is, while they’ve blown up in the Big Smoke (that’s London), the likelihood of them gaining more than token popularity (and that on the Gay scene) stateside is negligible – mainly because this is a band drenched in irony.
Scissor Sisters is an album inspired by an era and some of the artists that defined it. But it’s much more than a straightforward tribute to seventies rock and disco. The blend of sounds they employ and the sheer wit with which they re-imagine songs and even genres is so on the pulse, you realise this is not a ‘retro’ album.

To get an idea of their idiosyncratic approach, you only have to listen to their first single Comfortably Numb. It is indeed a cover of the Pink Floyd classic, except with a falsetto vocal line that sounds like the BeeGees on special K (can you imagine the bearded and be-mulleted ones singing ‘When I was a child I caught a fever/My hands looked like two balloons/Now i’ve got that feeling once again.’ It’s irreverent but so well executed and sincere, you don’t doubt them for a moment.

The same goes for the rest of the album. Their original material is consciously derivative, referencing the likes of early Elton John (in huge measure) the aforementioned BeeGees (again in huge measure) Talking Heads and the whole disco and electro genres, except with cutting edge production know how.

The result is a succession of tracks which after a couple of listenings you feel like you’ve known forever – until you check the lyrics on a sublime track like It Can’t Come Quickly Enough or the down and dirty Music Is The Victim. The Scissor Sisters can be touchingly emotional and blackly comic by turns. They’ve written some great songs. Check them out.