Crispy Ambulance ex-vocalist Alan Hempsall and experimental musician Dave Clarkson have made three previous albums together, but this is their most accomplished yet. It’s a dazzling soundclash of influences that intoxicates the brain. Robert Plummer gets in the thick of it.

It starts in chaos: an echoing voice, a siren, a distant rumbling and a funky clavinet. Then the big beat kicks in, bursts of wah-wah guitar erupt and you’re lost in the urban jungle. Opening number Seven Bells serves up a potent helping of Scissorgun’s heavily seasoned electronic gumbo, not recommended for those allergic to innovation.

The name of the record may be naggingly familiar to you from somewhere. Just to set your mind at rest, the phrase was previously used as the title of a little-remembered album by Geri Halliwell. Rest assured, though, Scissorgun have nothing else in common with the former Spice Girl.

As it happens, all manner of secret spices have been stirred into the musical pot, with ingredients sourced from a range of locations, from Sheffield to South America. Some of the duo’s inspirations recall early specialists in synthetic noise cuisine, such as Cabaret Voltaire and 23 Skidoo. But if the Cabs were operating from a run-down industrial warehouse, Scissorgun’s dark kitchen is somewhere a lot more sinister.

Let’s drop the culinary metaphor – Alan Hempsall and Dave Clarkson sound like the house band in a seedy basement nightclub trapped inside a video game. By now, they’re no longer able to tell the difference between their artificial avatars and their flesh-and-blood selves. And for their own protection, they’re separated by chicken wire from mutant punters who could turn on them at any moment, like the redneck audience in the Blues Brothers.

Too fanciful? Well, one of the tunes here is called Fever Dream, and their music is likely to conjure up exactly that kind of hallucinatory image. Take the zombie halfstep of Face Deflector, a perfect worksong for the undead: “I loaded 16 tons and it took all night/I shouldn’t laugh but I think I might.”

That’s followed by the aptly titled Fresh Hell, the sound of guttural-voiced monsters lumbering through a disorientating soundscape of electronic swarf. Most other tracks share its slow, sluggish tempo, accentuating the sense of a waking nightmare. Gone Rogue, for instance, moves to a heavily sedated reggae beat, while Late Nite Bento features the largely incomprehensible ramblings of a small-hours stoner.

Bad As Bingo, the first song to be released from the album, is the perkiest and crispest of its 10 tracks. Even so, the bouncy beat and digital handclaps can’t dispel the disquiet engendered by the murky synth tones and ominous lyrics: “Evil follows evil, my friend.”

Clam Shell Heart cools down the pace again without relaxing the tension. Its slow, sweeping synth washes and ponderous guitar riffs make perfect mood music for manic depressives. Yet the ambience shifts again on Magic Realism, a beatless six-minute odyssey based on a simple electric piano motif, snatches of birdsong and abstract guitar fragments.

The longest excursion is yet to come, however. Finally, the album casts its most potent spell on the nine-minute Cubanos Nocturne, which samples Brazilian percussion to create a delirious digital batucada. Snare drum, cuíca and agogô bells all make their presence felt, underpinned by booming sub-bass.

In a world where rinky-dink electro-pop has become the degree zero of modern music, artists who genuinely explore the full potential of synthetic sound have become all too rare. Scissorgun have been doing just that since 2016, but never before to such effect: Scream If You Wanna Go Faster puts their three previous albums in the shade. All you electronic noise freaks, rally round – you need to hear this.

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You can find Scissorgun’s music on their Bandcamp page. They are also on Facebook here.

All words by Robert Plummer. More writing by Robert can be found at his author’s archive. He is also on X as @robertp926.