Excluding Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ “More News from Nowhere,” Electric Six’s Flashy opener, “Gay Bar Part 2,” was my number one with a bullet career-referencing, fan-alienating track of ’08. Esoteric award categories aside, “Gay Bar Part 2” (and the rest of Flashy, for that matter) features “Knights of Cydonia”-sized sound, so-catchy-they-were-probably-written-by-Hoyt-Axton hooks, and the usual deviant energy and bleak social commentary Electric Six fans have raved about since 2003′s Fire.
Alas, Flashy was so critically ignored that E6 frontman Dick Valentine penned and posted a self-deprecating “sure-fire template” for “music reviewer[s] given the responsibility of reviewing the new Electric Six album” on the band’s website last year after months of limited attention. I thought I’d save him the trouble for Electric Six’s latest release, Kill.
Like its predecessors, Kill manages to meld slick—yet tastefully schlocky—lyrical content, sharp melodies, and impressive-for-cock-pop musicianship—all while maintaining a subtly sincere tone. Yes, I said it. The Electric Six are masters of not just silliness, but sincerity and satire too. Even Kill’s primed-for-womanizing-criticism, Phil Collins-channeling opener, “Body Shot,” urges you to “do something with your life before you die,” even if that just means becoming a Bang Bros model.
The second—and darkest—track on the album, “Waste of Time and Money,” departs drastically from the explicit goofiness of “Body Shot,” chronicling a hopefully-fictional-for-Valentine’s-sake relationship gone tits-up. “Waste of Time and Money” is both pummeling and unnerving in a way that only Electric Six and, say, Harry Nilsson could get away with (see: “After five bottles of wine/my friends opine/that I should consider therapy/But they’ve clearly never been with you, baby/They don’t know about the things that you’ve done to me”). “Waste of Time and Money” features a kind of oh-wow-this-shit-is-serious Electric Six that we haven’t seen since Senor Smoke fan favorite “Jimmy Carter,” which, as compared to Kill’s equally catchy and morbid but thrice as silly “Steal Your Bones,” is a nice change of pace.
Other highlights include the Buckeye State-bashing “Escape from Ohio,” the funky, blue collar ballad “I Belong in a Factory,” the should-be-used-in-a-light-gun-shooter “White Eyes,” the lounge-tastic “My Idea of Fun,” and “Egyptian Cowboy”—featuring Percussion World’s Phil Rudd-on-speed drum-fills and Tait Nucleus’ Wall-of-Soundsystem-style synths. Drawing from the same raucous energy of Flashy’s “We Were Witchy Witchy White Women,” ”Egyptian Cowboy” comes complete with absurdist lyrics, like the Oberstian “There’s no such thing as an electric tuba/The Detroit river’s not a good place to scuba,” not to mention dueling power chords and glammy guitar squeals good enough to give Steve Clark a post-mortem boner.
Even the album’s low points (“You’re Bored,” “One Sick Puppy”—aside from the breakdown) are overshadowed by Valentine’s classically croony lounge-metal vocals, solid satirical substance, abysmal anecdotes, and (usually) smarter-than-your-average-bear pop-culture references. Comprised of equal parts cock-pop, new-wave, metal, and contemporary crooning, Kill does just as its namesake suggests.
Kill is out now on Metropolis.
Good to know I’m not the only one who likes this new album. “I Belong in a Factory” is my personal fav.