I’m not going to bullshit you. This is, in all likelihood, the most biased review you’ll ever read. I’m fine with that, and you should be too, because Electric Six are supreme champions of everything unholy and awesome about rock n’ roll. If you’re not on the train already, it’s time you got on board.

Together, this sextet of hearty cocksmen rewrite the periodic table of party rock. They cause photosynthesis at night. They are ridiculous refined, a wide-eyed, sex-charged disco-metal beast, voracious for that sacred cow. 

They are Electric Six, and they just finished their fifth album. It’s called Flashy, and it’s a dynamite bacchanal of the highest order.

E6 rose to power in 2003 with their debut Fire, torching both Taco Bell and the disco with their song Danger! High Voltage and laying to waste to the moth-eaten tapestry of party rock. They’ve since developed a cult following with their flair for irony-soaked lyrics, catchy tunes, on-stage aerobics and bizarrely awesome videos. Frontman Dick Valentine is like a faith healer on ecstasy, the master of ceremonies and undisputed king of acerbic one-liners. His sex-rock hypnotics could turn a funeral into an orgy with the dead. All you need is a mirrorball and a microphone. And maybe some lotion.

The band’s relentless work ethic results in roughly an album a year, followed by marathon tours to promote them, due to an unjustified habit of getting dropped from just about every label they’ve ever been on. Skwerl and I caught them at the Key Club in LA last fall, bearing first-hand witness to the glory conjured by Valentine, Tait Nucleus, Percussion World, Johnny Na$ional, the Colonel and Smorgasbord (don’t ask me- somehow the names fit). In between spontaneous bursts of onstage calisthenics and discussions on how “my drummer has no recourse,” Valentine led the group through a blistering set of the band’s hits, a staight-no-chaser set of face melting inducers of frantic dancing and laugh-along audience participation. 

True to form with the rest of their catalogue, Flashy is an intentionally gaudy celebration of the absurd, embracing disposable culture and manipulating it to serve their disco-metal synth pop whims. This music is best for the kind of dancing one would only do in their underwear in front of the bedroom mirror, or on the dancefloor after a trip to the costume store and about nine margaritas. 

Valentine’s vocal delivery is second to none in terms of balls-out sex machine swagger. You don’t seem like yourself, so who are you? he asks in Dirty Ball, a jive-talkin’ slap-funk jam that’s bound for the inevitable greatest hits record. 

Push me up against the dirty wall / My stance is too wide for that stall / Put your dirty love in a ball / and bounce it off me

The blistering Gay Bar, Pt. 2 bears absolutely no resemblance to the first, wildly popular Gay Bar, a fact best explained by the band: “Opening with the shameless and cowardly, but highly entertaining and delicious Gay Bar, Pt. 2, Electric Six is coming at you with all full force, hearkening back immediately to a very profitable time in its career, hoping that somehow an association will be made wherein the listener might accidentally buy more copies of this record than he normally would have because he thinks he’s getting Gay Bar, Pt. 1.” Sounds about right. Either way, the song’s a contender for album opener of the year.

Formula 409 is Electric Six doing precisely what they do best- popped-collar riffage with absurdly dedicated delivery on even more absurd subject matter:

It’s a song that gels well with any of their previous albums, something that can definitely not be said for We Were Witchy Witchy White Women, a celebration of lesbian witches that’s a steep evolutionary upswing in the band’s sound. This is the Blade Runner of the E6 catalogue, a higher-octane step forward on all counts:

Your Heat Is Rising, a testament to sex-engine revving (or maybe nothing at all, it’s hard to tell), is no exception. Lines like Anytime you wanna leave your lover for me / Would be a good time to leave your lover for me are worth the thematic ambiguity.

Heavy Women sounds like deep-fried chunks of greasy batter right out of the gate, a clogged-artery ode to the morbidly obese, while Lovers Beware is the closest thing to a ballad that E6 is gonna get, warning of the perils of loving the wrong guy despite the choral shouts and upbeat nature of it all. Graphic Designer, on the other hand, is a hilariously rockin’ celebration of the title character’s Photoshop abilities. You can keep your Darkness and Eagles Of Death Metal- not a single irony-rock technosterone band out there could so much as polish the crown of Electric Six.

Unlike most of their previous records, Flashy doesn’t contain a song with “dance” in the title, but there’s no shortage of danceable material here. Flashy Man is an effects-heavy synth jam, dripping decadence laced with unabashed, pull-the-speedo-to-the-side sexuality, narrating the exploits of the best-dressed alpha male around. He won’t apologize cause he’s not sorry / He’s the XBox to your Atari / Look out! Here comes the Flash!

First single Transatlantic Flight documents an encounter on a plane from JFK to Heathrow in the middle of the night. I don’t know if I’d call it love at first sight, but there’s an unabashed self-sacrificing chivalry to a line like In the event of a water landing / You can use my body as a flotation device.

Self-awareness is an alien entity to the likes of Mr. Valentine, a key element to his persona. But the man’s not above laying nations to waste in the name of love, as evidenced in Watching Evil Empires Fall Apart:

So I focused my attentions in the wars on the West / drew up a battle plan and put my armies to the test / I came walking through the sands, and you were wearing that white dress/ Lost my interest in the boys and the mess / Dropped to my knees and began to confess / I controlled the world / You controlled my heart / And life was easier than watching empires fall apart

If anything on the FM dial were worth its weight in radio waves, this album would be in heavy rotation on the party station. No, to hell with that- E6 deserves their own full-time slot. Sure, you can steal this record the same way you do all the others… but some things are worth the price of admission- even if the emergency exit’s propped open.

I doubt there’s much room left for debate as to my opinion of Flashy, so I’ll give the band the final word on this one, via their MySpace:

Most importantly, Flashy, the new album by Detroit’s Electric Six, is a beacon of liberty in an ocean of communism. If you love America, you will buy this record. You are either with us or you are with David Geffen.

I couldn’t agree more. 

Flashy
October 21, 2009
Metropolis Records

1. Gay Bar, Pt. 2
2. Formula 409
3. We Were Witchy Witchy White Women
4. Dirty Ball
5. Lovers Beware
6. Your Heat Is Rising
7. Face Cuts
8. Heavy Woman
9. Flashy Man
10. Watching Evil Empires Fall Apart
11. Graphic Designer
12. Transatlantic Flight
13. Making Progres

P.S. Antiquiet interviewed Dick Valentine in February. Check it out here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 11:15 AM and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can comment, or trackback from your own site. Tags: Dick Valentine, Electric Six, Gay Abraham Lincoln