Album Review: VI by The Fucking Champs

On their last album, these San Franciscan instrumental-metal wags gave us a version of Air on a G String reimagined for three electric guitars and an ocean of reverb. Here they do the same for Abide With Me, and whether or not it's still funny, it sounds great. It also nicely sums up their enthusiasm for heavy rock with ideas way above its station. Elsewhere, VI largely does away with the synth embellishments of old, but the band's stock-in trade of highest-quality riffing is intact, veering from Thin Lizzy-style pop hooks to abstruse mathematics.

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There are two easy ways to start a review about the Fucking Champs. One is to pontificate on the band's name, altered from "the Champs" to "the Fucking Champs" sometime in the mid-1990s, whether for shock value or to piss off mainstream radio announcers or simply because that's how their fans referred to them. (Except for the most enthusiastic ones, who now call the band the Fuckin' Fucking Champs).

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