“
The Brooklyn-based collective Flaming Fire is more like an evangelical church congregation than like a conventional rock group, with its leader, Patrick Hambrecht, in the role of preacher and the other members (including his wife, Kate) as his loyal followers. The group’s songs pair deceptively simple Residents-like riffs and occasional bursts of noise with fearsome, Biblical-sounding group chants and call-and-response singing. Most refreshing are Hambrecht’s seriousness and fervor. (The band’s sense of irony is limited to the darker variety -- 'Kill the Right People,' one refrain goes.)”
-The New Yorker
“
Well, at least some of the kooks have stuck it out in New York City and they are in Flaming Fire, an awesomely kooky, theatrical band singing songs of biblical plagues and Egyptian sexual practices. Picture the Butthole Surfers, the Residents, the Manson Family, and the B-52s all running amok in a Kenneth Anger film.”
-Meg Sneed, Vice
“
As Flaming Fire crispy-fried my brain with psychedevil dance-pop noise, I scribbled "Satanic B-52's" in my notes;
but I could write them up as resembling numerous NYC "collective" bands, or even We Are the Seahorses, and it would
make about the same sense. It's actually not inappropriate to compare Brooklyn's Flaming Fire with the Manson Family.
FF ringmaster Patrick Hambrecht has long hair and a beard, he's at the forefront of several peculiar characters
(including a handful of, uh, hot chicks), and they may or may not be plotting to kill Dennis Wilson. As for the music,
not even coming off their best acid orgy and/or baby delivery were Charlie and company ever in FF's league.”
-Barry Thompson, Boston Phoenix
“
This band dresses up in identically colored garments, plays high-energy music with call-and-response vocals, and is led by a long-haired, wild-eyed preacher figure -- it's like an evangelical congregation whipped into a glossolalian frenzy. Sound familiar? No, it's not the Polyphonic Spree. If anything, Flaming Fire, a New York apocalyptic-cabaret group, is the exact opposite: a red-clad horde sent to banish any mellow vibes such a namby-pamby group might have left behind from its show the previous evening. (Ahem!) They're the Jonestown answer to the Danielson Famile, the Mansonic answer to The Winans -- and the retort to any other uplifting, clap-your-hands gospel outfit you can name. For the Flaming Fire have arrived not to call you to heaven, but to bring you down. Way down--but in the best way possible. Bearded, crimson-suited Patrick Hambrecht (who sounds a bit like gruff Michael Gerald, from Killdozer) belts out tales of Biblical plagues; Lauren Weinstein adds vocals on tracks such as "Breaking Your Own Heart" ("your pagan books / French poetry / what does decadence mean to me").... With songs like "Kill the Right People" and "Acid Trash," Flaming Fire's newest album, Kentucky Shroud, is a helter-skelter romp through Sunday school as taught by Woody and Juliette's characters from Natural Born Killers. Yet Flaming Fire shows proper reverence for Scripture -- the band is the middle of a huge effort to compile a completely illustrated King James Bible with 36,665 artworks (one for every verse). Anyone who comes to a show can bring an original drawing to help the cause. Just don't think you'll emerge from this Babylonian event unscathed by harlots and idolaters. Glance back at the venue a bit too wistfully when you leave, and you might just turn into a pillar of salt.”
-Manny Theiner, Pittsburgh City Paper
“
Flaming Fire intonates like a rock band ravaging churchgoers inside of Heaven's
Gate's collective mind, and it's oddly awesome. That there’s no irony to Patrick
Hambrecht's vision surprises at first; after all, so many bands use religion as a
whipping boy. Instead, he looks at the Bible (and the past in general) the same
way a comic book nerd pours over Watchmen, that is, with thrill and reverence.
The result sounds like Butthole Surfers if Butthole Surfers was Ike & Tina Turner
was DC Talk was Marilyn Manson.
Flaming Fire succeeds because there's nothing forced about Mr. Hambrecht's religious fervor; you really get the feeling this guy is on a mission from God.
There’s no wink or smirk at the camera, just passion and drive (and maybe half a
wink). But this freak show is something quite real, the same kind of stuff big tent revivals and mega churches are made of (except those people would probably
see When the High Bell Rings as the devil's work); the odd elements comprise
but some of the album's highlights. Flaming Fire's clusterfuck becomes a
wonderful conglomeration of genres tied together by a loose theme, much like a
church potluck. Flaming Fire stirs bland flavors together and mashes them into divine comfort food.”
-Mark Karges, Delusions of Adequacy
“With their massed girl-group exuberance and dark, maniacal undertones, they
sound like the B-52s locked in a death struggle with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.
You don't know exactly how seriously to take any of this; it's a drunken conga-line
that might be snaking its way toward human sacrifice.”
-
Jennifer Kelly, Dusted Magazine
“If you are interested in a band willing to go to the edge and present music that
outside the norm, then you should give this one a try.”
-
Mite Mutant, The
Chickenfish Speaks
“Not sure what to make of this slice of weirdness. On one hand, When the High
Bell Rings, the third album from New Jersey's Flaming Fire, plays like a theatrical,
avant-garde rock opera, complete with a multitude of vocalists (male and
female) and musicians. Upon repeated spins it comes across simply as an
adventurous trip into 60's psychedelia, sort of like a bastard offspring of Arthur
Brown, The Go-Go's, Meat Loaf, and Aphrodite's Child.”
-
Pete Pardo, Sea of
Tranquility
“'The Stars That Burn’ sounds like the Brady Bunch tune handled by a drunken, corrupted Nancy Sinatra. Yes, it’s good. Prolonged exposure may well turn you into them but that’s hardly a crime.”
-
Mick Mercer, The Mick
Venus spring 2003 issue; fashion story "Too Cool for School"
“It's like experiencing your purest visions of heaven and hell while attending Sunday school wasted on glue...Like a lost synth-prog opera, a forgotten cosmology laced in rock and roll, this extremely theatrical second album from Brooklyn's Flaming Fire very nearly defies description, let alone those facile 'sounds like X crossed with Y' comparisons. 'Songs from the Shining Temple' is like watching Billy Graham with the sound off, Black Sabbath blasting in the background.”
-Jennifer Kelly, Splendid
“Can't accuse Flaming Fire of having a dull stage show--they've got the costumes, the bombast, the eye-grabbing frontpeople, the general sense of performance spectacle. They've also got the songs: unnerving, arty, freaky anthems about mortality, divinity, and leopard ninja people with plastic wings, sort of the avant-garde 'Bat out of Hell.'”
-Douglas Wolk, Village Voice
“Excellent New York-area weirdness...Flaming Fire delivers bent cabaret chaos.”
-Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, Arthur magazine
“ ’There is a Sky’ is genius. The multi-vocal tribal, reverso freak out is overwhelmingly great. It's simplistic, yet clever, yet strange themo just pumps it forward. One of the top 50 great halloween psych tracks EVER.”
-MSP, Pataphysics Research Laboratory
“Brooklyn's Flaming Fire is a theatrical rock combo
halfway between the Residents and an off-Broadway show, balancing horror-film-creepy singing and keyboard manipulations....One of the cooler, more inventive bands in town.”
-Time Out New York
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“Best Greek Choir of 2003”
-Venus magazine
“I think that we are in the presence of a new religion. The main goddess apparently goes by the name of Lauren Weinstein… Flaming Fire is a band that rivals both the Slits and Crawling Chaos in the utterly weird, totally odd, and disturbingly interesting music… From loud chants to cacophonous percussion and noises I'm too afraid to attempt to figure out, there's a whole lot of weirdness going on here. And, you know what? I LOVE IT… One of the most lovingly confounding records I've heard all year, if not ever.
”
-Joseph Kyle, mundanesounds.com
“Flaming Fire is a higgledy-piggledy mash-up of electronica, banjos, and 1980s pop. Art school never sounded so good.”
-Boston Globe
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“One thing that sets Brooklyn's Flaming Fire apart from similarly theatrical live acts is that its records actually bear repeated listening and reveal something new every time--unlike, say, Fischerspooner, whose albums are about as much fun as watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show at home by yourself. Its second album, Songs From the Shining Temple (Perhaps Transparent Recordings), creates a feel of high-tech, happy heathenism in even the dourest apartment: the beat and chant and joyous, playful violence has a sincere quality of myth.
”
-Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader
“[Four out of four stars] Bizarro apocalyptic band, but we love them anyway.”
-JANE magazine
“Art-music collectives too often produce music with all the vibrancy of beige wallpaper, but Flaming Fire, led by the husband-wife team of Patrick and Kate Hambrecht and the vocals of comics artist Lauren Weinstein, manage to create cerebral upbeat songs that hang onto their avant style but do so with poppy harmonies and dramatic lyrical buildups that work even if you're not in the 'in crowd.' Even stranger, these guys make bizarro Christian music, although it's hard to imagine Amy Grant singing lines like 'I like to party with Jesuits' or 'It's hard fucking work killing the damned.' Lest you think it's all ironic, consider this side project led by son-of-a-preacher Patrick: an illustrated Bible, in which artists are trying to draw a picture to go with every single verse. Irony don't work that hard.”
- Brian Hieggelke, New City, Chicago
“Suited to some heavy drinking and dancing...kind of a B-52s with an anger management problem.”
-Amy, Collected Sounds
“Flaming Fire is one f***ed up band. If you like twisted, mental pop music you need to seek out this album. They are indeed strange and innovative and at times, completely insane. There are times when you think you are going to go nuts listening to Songs From the Shining Temple but you keep going, afraid that you might miss something. Somehow they have figured out how to mix punk, post-rock, avant-garde and even pop to create some of the most outrageous songs I have ever heard. I found this a very enjoyable release and feel that others may benefit from this album.”
-MusicEmissions.com
“NYC concertgoers have been lucky enough to have the chance to witness the live spectacle of Brooklyn's FF for the last few years and they're a hard image to forget: cloaked in red togas they turn the stage into a scene out of a Greco-Roman ritual or bizarro Kenneth Anger flick. Despite the weird pagan vibe, it's not as foreboding as you would think; there's pounding rhythms, chanting, noisy electronics, but there's also a great playful air about Flaming Fire and extremely catchy and hummable guy/gal interplay between Patrick Hambrecht, his missus Kate, and third vocalist Lauren Weinstein. The songs are completely inventive, fun 'n dark, as if Beelzebub was about to take over, but decided to sit in and play the moog for a while. Damn, I would even kinda say FF are sometimes a cross between Psychic TV and Haysi Fantaysee (that's not an insult, honest). Great layers and textures, total theatrics both visually and musically, and it all carries onto their records (this is the second) wonderfully.”
-Brian Turner, program director, WFMU
“Combines Devo's deadpan irony and outrage with pounding tribal drums, electronica, pop, noise, pastoral folk guitars, and a wild variety of singing styles that encompass everything from medieval chanting to straight pop stylings to crazed shouting (and a lot of other stuff in between). The next thing you should hear is the wind in your wake as you rush to find yourself a copy of this. Trust me. It's burnin', burnin', burnin'....”
-The Moon Unit, DEAD ANGEL
“Flaming Fire's ceremonial entrance and placement on stage caused the entire crowd to flock toward the stage, many in what seemed to be a mix of wide-eyed wonder and restrained curiosity. It would be a safe bet that what would commence would be unlike anything anyone was expecting. The show began with ferocity, the seven-foot gap between the crowd and the stage felt necessary, much like the distance one would keep from an actual fire. The trio of husband and wife Patrick and Kate Hambrecht and Lauren Weinstein stood in front, trading rhythmic vocal harmonies and lead howlings, each commanding the group with their hypnotic stage presence. Patrick Hambrecht engaged in such an overwhelming frenzy of movement coupled with his guttural, primal growling that you couldn't help but wonder what long-forgotten ancient deities he was channeling through his rock star persona.
At times, he would drop to his knees in such furious, cacophonic rage, he would seem to be speaking in tongues.
Even the group's calmer numbers, often backed by trance-like electronic rhythms, remained all at once engaging, exciting and subduing.
As Flaming Fire performed, the crowd stood fully engaged and unaware of anything else around them, except for the six figures performing before them.
That was what made Flaming Fire so unforgettable. It was a deeply primal, cathartic, uplifting, frightening and wholly religious experience.”
-Christian Long, DAILY NEBRASKAN
Reviews of "Get Old and Die With Flaming Fire"
“It's mental, fun and absolutely essential if you're into good weird music.”
-Girl the Bourgeois Individualist, SORDID magazine
“Flaming Fire bills itself as an Expressionist, Greco-Roman, Fellini-esque performance outfit, but all those adjectives are vain attempts to categorize the uncategorizable. The songs on the group’s ‘Get Old and Die’ randomly mix pop camp, goth over-earnestness, folk tunefulness, electro noise, choral chanting, and some old-fashioned hollering into a chaotic stew. Singer Lauren Weinstein is also a comic artist—check out her work in the book ‘Inside Vineyland’—so don’t be surprised if the theatrical live show comes with some visuals, too.”
-The Onion
“Flaming Fire manages to be psychotic, deliriously giddy, bizarrely sensual, and oddly sinister all at the same time. Maybe it's island music or exotica as made by pagans with modern tools and ancient sensibilities."
-The Moon Unit, DEAD ANGEL
“This band from Brooklyn possesses all the attributes of fire, its warmth, its brightness, its untamed mobility, its magic. One could find them accompanying Fellini sequences. An intelligent mix of pagan folk and no0ise, brilliant!”
-Stephane Fivaz,Heimdallr Music and Culture
“The easy referents for this Brooklyn quartet would be Devo, the Residents, Current 93, and assorted vintage weirdo hippie folk—but note that the only thing those folks all have in common is that above all they did their own thing. Flaming Fire’s new Get Old and Die is one of the most engaged and alive-sounding records I’ve heard in a long time.”
-Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader
“Flaming Fire combines rudimentary Casio grooves and beats, fuzzadelic guitar riffs, and 40 to 50 minutes of vocals which can only be compared to an off-Broadway performance of 'Dante's Inferno, The Musical' --plus elements of Gregorian chant, the Andrews Sisters' Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Mark Mothersbaugh, Sweeney Todd, and just about any Satanic ceremony featuring Don Henley, Sammy Davis Jr., and Linda Lovelace in the early '70s.”
-Dan Century, Legends Magazine
“Like Syd Barrett joined a circus of like-minded souls, or The Residents tried to stand still, or Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV went simultaneously wonkier and straighter."”
- Jimmy Possession Robots And Electronic Brains ZineCambridge, England
“ So distinctive and homemade idiosyncratic that it's become a recent favorite. Lo-fi murky emerging into fuzzy throbbing twilight. Mixing male and female vocals, ranging from songlike to abstract. Overtly Residents influenced, with elements of mentally retarded funk, transistor radio '60s pop, a genre hopping schizophrenia, stoned inventiveness; sketching out new worlds out of tin cans and chalk. ”
-George Parsons Dream Magazine, Nevada
“Brooklyn-based Flaming Fire is all
about the noisy pagan folk-goth, dark & red - sorta like a
young urban person's guide to Current 93, Jackie-O Motherfucker
and The Wicker Man. ”
-Scott Williams, DJ
& Director, New
York City's WFMU, 91.1 FM
“ I love the new Flaming Fire! Brilliant madness! ”
-Carl "Ratso" Russo KUSF Radio 90.3, San Francisco
“This cd gets the highest rating. I would buy it with my last dollar.”
-Sally Bishai
Privy Magazine
“ Hysterical chanting with eerie psychedelic tape loops and digital noise are combined to experimental psychedelia that is unabashedly bizarre.”
- Peter Jan Van Damme DARKER THAN THE BAT, NOVEMBER 18 - Belgium
“ ...they, in a manner of a traditional Greek choir perform some of the strangest folk-Goth on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Einstürzende Neubauten, beware!”
-Kalle Malmstedt Re0lease Magazine, Sweden
“Best described as sixties-influenced pagan-meets-hippie gothic noise-rock...a fun and adventurous disc.”
- Peter Thelen Exposé (#24)
“I did not locate their planet of origin yet, but that of the "Residents" must be in the same galaxy, for sure! ”
-OPPOSITION DE PHASE
(in French)
“The entire CD is filled with unexpected pleasures like demented background vocals and weird lyrics.”
-Don Campau
91.5 FM KKUP in Cupertino California
“The first time you listen to Get Old and Die with Flaming Fire, you may feel as if you're a diabetic suffering hypoglycemia as the world begins to come apart at the seams. ”
-Josh Kazman
Splendid
Reviews of Rock Rock Chicken Pox: "Die, Grizzly! Die!!"
"Carefully disguised folk-noise brilliance"
-Will York,
Listen.com
" I
Win, God Kills, You Die ,
is an extreme track, perfect for fans of the Residents. For
those yearning for a listen to something truly unique and
unabashedly bizarre, this work’s not to be missed!”
-Madeline Virbasius-Walsh,
Editor, The Sentimentalist
Profiles of Flaming Fire
4/20/2003 New York Times article on the Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible
“In the Land of the Hip, a Little Bit of Wholesome
By SARAH SCHMIDT
It was a Friday night at CB's 313 Gallery, a small bar and performance space on the Bowery at Bleecker Street in the East Village. About 50 young artists and musicians sporting ironic T-shirts and thrift-shop clothes were deep in thought - heads down, colored pencils poised, eyes focused on the sheets of paper they'd been given.
