On their self-titled debut, Melt Yourself Down frontman Kushal Gaya exorcised his demons in Mauritian, French Creole and his own invented language. Its follow-up features lyrics in English, and some strikingly graphic imagery: “I’ve got the rot,” he meditates on Dot to Dot, as if goading the grim reaper, “Cancer me, I say!” This almighty eruption of creativity is led by saxophonist Pete Wareham of Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear, and its central themes are disease, death and war, after the band lost several loved ones in the space of a year. But it refuses to be conquered by misery or contemplation: a frenzy of north African instrumentation, punk and deranged jazz leads a collision of sounds that channels the spirit of revolution, and the heat and claustrophobia of a politically fractious city. Communication is filled with frenzied chattering; Jump the Fire is an almighty industrial wallop. A sickly sense of overwhelming and exhaustion runs throughout.
