Dawn of the Replicants - Fix the air

There's a town / with the shutters down [...]' So begins this truly odd, truly tuneful single; narrated by a threateningly deep voice, describing an eccentric and hellish, Fargo-like place, where "fields don't grow" and there's "only snow." The song has real wit, from the false worldliness of Paul Vickers' vocals (he's describing a fantasy), to the psychedelic surprise of the breathily zany chorus, insisting that we the listener, or someone, anyone, "fix the air." The sense that it could all represent an ambitious psychological metaphor only adds to our own curious, skewed enjoyment. [Rupert Thomson]