Should you ever find yourself responsible for organizing the wedding of Siegfried and Roy, don’t sweat the reception: I’ve got just the band for you. Not only would the hipsters in New York’s Firewater—who describe themselves as a “wedding band gone wrong”—look good in tuxedos, but their new release, The Man on the Burning Tightrope, has that big-top organ sound down cold. The group has been providing inspiration to lion tamers, sideshow freaks, and strippers everywhere since 1995, which is when former Cop Shoot Cop bassist Tod Ashley (who now prefers just “Tod A”) joined former Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Dennison and some other folks to produce the kind of klezmer-jazz-goth-rock hybrid usually reserved for Wim Wenders movies. All but Mr. A have since departed, but Firewater’s signature schtick—which sounds like nothing so much as a smooth updating of the Doors doing “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)”—remains the same. Now, I’m into the Doors as much as the next fella, but a little Firewater goes a long way, and as a result I find myself skipping such organ-heavy oompahisms as the title track and “Too Many Angels”—though I’ll bet your average clown would like ’em just fine. On the plus side, A’s moody ringmaster vocals have a certain glam panache, and he possesses the good sense to relieve the album’s atmosphere of gloom and doom with the occasional dose of black humor, such as when he sings, “Moderation is a sin, boys (What’s a little Hoof & Mouth Disease?)” on “The Notorious & Legendary Dog & Pony Show.” As far as I’m concerned, though, Firewater is at its best when it just rocks out, as it does on the very Cobra Verde-esque “Anything at All”—during which new member Oren Kaplan provides some fierce guitar work—the straight-ahead “Don’t Make It Stop” and the seductive “Secret.” Still, getting back to basics doesn’t always work here: “Too Much (Is Never Enough)” bears a creepy and unforgivable resemblance to Smash Mouth’s criminally overplayed “Walking on the Sun.” Jeez, where do these people live, under a tent? —Michael Little