Hi, Davey Dreamnation aka Les Fauves here, with another Future Spa hot-take.

Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, bit where it stops for the riff, repeat song title, instrumental fade out.

If there’s one Fauves song that exemplifies professional, hook-laden, three-minute power-pop, this is it.

Doctor could have retired from songwriting altogether the minute “Death Threats” came out as a single, secure in the knowledge that he’d written an anthem to paranoia equal to if not better than anything else on the mid-1990s airwaves.

Impeccable.

And if the opening track of an album is meant to set the scene vibe-wise, then track two becomes even more important as a definition of tone and intent.

No wonder Doctor’s songs always occupied this spot on the Fauves’ early albums: “Marble Arse” on Drive-Through Charisma, “Dwarf on Dwarf” on The Young Need Discipline and “Death Threats” here.

The film clip, which I swear I never even saw when the album came out, mostly because we didn’t have a TV in our share house, finds the band alternating between burling down a bunch of dirt country roads in some old car (makes and models have never been my strong point) with Doug at the wheel, and miming–i mean rocking–out in a sepia-toned field somewhere.

It’s Doctor’s song, so he obviously stars, sporting a trucker’s cap and ironic sideburns, check shirt and white tee beneath, hoop in the left ear, at the height of his riffing powers.

But who’s the fucking clown whose lipstick-smeared mug flashes up on the screen at random moments during the film clip?

It’s the only thing that troubles me about this song.

This is the text version of my cameo contribution to Episode 94 of Fauves Are the Best People, which you can listen to on Spotify (see below) or wherever you get your podcasts.