THE BURNING HELL - My Name Is Mathias from Mitch Fillion (southernsouls.ca) on Vimeo.

I was downtown yesterday, and I wandered into the giant new Forever 21. It’s three stories of ultra-trendy, disposable clothes for $19.99 or less, the kind of place that makes me vaguely queasy if I think too hard about it but that I would have loved as a mostly broke, clotheshorse teenager. Though the questionable craftsmanship and minuscule sizing of the merchandise have long left me suspicious that I’m too old to shop there, the perky mannequins and hope for that one great bargain somehow keep drawing me back in.

Yesterday, though, I may have received my final shock to my senses. Forever 21’s current stock is, so far as I can tell, three full floors of rayon-blend floral-print rompers. Now sure, I’ve rocked a floral rayon romper or two — when I was ten. I also wore scrunchies, and was possibly still puff-painting my Keds. But I have a vague theory that one is only the right age for any given trend once, and frankly at my age I can’t imagine those rompers looking anything but ridiculous, so I turned on my heel and returned to the cozy confines of the Gap.

But even if we aren’t all forever twenty-one (thank God), or even forever ten, there is something about a certain set of childhood years that makes them imprint themselves in our squishy little brains and live there forever, hanging out eating Spaghetti-Os in a a treehouse in our soul. This is why I can never pass by a bin of slap bracelets without wanting to buy one, and why I’m guaranteed to spend one night every summer sitting on the concrete of the Fremont Outdoor Cinema waiting for The Neverending Story to start.

Peterborough, Ontario band The Burning Hell - singer/songwriter Mathias Kom and an ever-changing band of mates - have made an entire album from this phenomenon. Generally, Flux Capacitor celebrates growing thirty-something gracefully while still embracing the glories of a late-eighties childhood. Specifically, it explores The Lost Boys, Back to the Future, The Last Unicorn, Ewoks, gold stars, report cards, only childhood, and predestination.

Ostensibly autobiographical and frequently self-referential, Flux Capacitor has the feel of a night spent listening to a very clever man tell his life story. It begins with an introductory song that serves as a sort of overview and prologue: “She loved my dad’s religion / She loved him too / And that’s how I was born a Jew.” Other songs elaborate on specific themes. “Bedtime Stories” explains how Kom’s childhood ethics led him to sympathize with the villains in his Grimm’s tales: “When the witch died I cried / Because I didn’t want them to hurt her.” “Like An Anvil” is a Back to the Future tribute song that places the listener in Marty McFly’s shoes.

What sets The Burning Hell apart from, say, Weird Al, and above “humor” bands in general is the pathos that mingles with the glee. Back to the Future homage “Like An Anvil” isn’t just about Marty McFly’s guitar playing, but also carefully expresses the anxieties of adulthood. “Everybody needs a genius scientist to tell them what to do / Or at least a teleprompter to remind them of their lines.” In “Bedtime Stories” Kom brings the point home less subtly: “Hey kid / Here’s a bedtime story for you / Wicked witch wins and the orphans lose / They did everything right and now they’re orphan fondue / The moral of the story is you don’t always get to choose.”

Gradually the pathos becomes more prevalent and the rose-tinted 3D glasses are left behind. “I know there’s lots that I’m forgetting… I think there was some heartbreak / And some humiliation,” Kom sings in “Nostalgia,” concluding with a cadenced lament: “It’ll never be that good again.” In “Stroke of Genius,” life is described as “A comedian who used to be funny / But then became a born-again Christian / Now it’s all punch and no punchline.”

But lest you think this is a weepy album, consider the background instrumentation: a melange of ukelele, children’s chorus, and jazzy horns. Usually upbeat and often danceable, The Burning Hell is far more punchline than punch, even when delivering some of life’s grave truths. Kom sing-talks over the music in a style something like a lounge singer version of the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn.

With Flux Capacitor, The Burning Hell present innocence and experience as a jazzy cabaret, allowing us to kick up our heels and drink to the glories of DeLoreans and scrunchies, the better to drown our grown-up cares. “Sometimes,” Kom advises, “you have to let things slip away.” The past or the present? Take that as you will.
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Flux Capacitor is available now on zunior.com now and on CD and LP May 31.
The Burning Hell plays the Vancouver Folk Festival July 15.