DISCO BURN.

Electric Six - Dance Epidemic - Dick Valentine is a Hyper-Sexual Dance Cyborg on a mission to forcibly shake the ass of every man woman and child on this planet. He may or may not succeed, but there is no denying the sheer power of the sonic arsenal that his crack squadron, codenamed: The Electric Six can bring to bear. Dance Epidemic comes from the bands second assault, an album entitled Señor Smoke, full of songs about Dancing (Dance Epidimic, Dance-A-Thon 2005), Burgers, Gender, Sex, Presidents, and of course, Sex Toys. Electric Six have always been insistently aware of their own Kitsch factor, and have responded by taking it over the top, and deciding that, where living in one kitschy annoying genre hole may get you a hit, living in EVERY SINGLE ONE might get you a career. And so we have Dance Epidemic, combining the insistent, pervasive discohooks of the Scissor Sisters with the Darknesses heavy metal crunch - this Epidemic, I think it might be spreading.

Electric Six - Jimmy Carter - And yet, clearly, the boys from E6 show signs on Señor Smoke of growing bored with that sound. Case in point: Jimmy Carter. You can't really dance to this one. Minor key basslines, swirled around by AM -radio fuzz, as Dick sings of Ex-presidents, boy-bands (Yes, that was "Backstreets Back, all right" that you heard deadpanned to kick off the chorus), and paranoia. There's something wierdly sober about it all, even as the lyrics are complete nonsense. And towards the end, theirs a riff ripped straight from the Killers, but I don't know how many people will notice that and/or care. It strikes me as just being in there to add to the absurdity of it all.


Electric Six - Future is in the Future - This could be the song that takes the restlessness of "Jimmy Carter" and cashes it in to a quality song. The same crunchy metal riffs and disco beats are their, but theres also flashes of Hall & Oates in here, and Valentines lyrical delivery seems more human, more pained than in the past. Gone is the ass kicking missionary of disco, replaced by a washed up musicman, remembering the good times, Karaoke and Macarena, and yet, seeing exactly why he wanted out. It's sober, and yet, the horns and synths lift it out and make it something else entirely. The song is good to begin with, and killer brass solo around the 3 minute mark kicks it into a whole new stratosphere.

[Señor Smoke isn't due out for a while yet, so until then, go to Insound and buy Fire if you haven't already. But you already own Fire. Don't you? You should you know.]