REVIEWS

Buy this album from Amazon.com

Electric Six
Flashy

Metropolis Records

Posted: Friday, September 19, 2008
By: Denyss McKnight

Detroit's Electric Six have once again outdone themselves on their fifth full length album, Flashy. Armed with their all but trademarked blend of disco sensibilities and hard hitting rock, the sextet pounds out track after track of sheer danceable aural bliss. Frontman Dick Valentine employs his razor sharp wit to take you from his standard demand for carnal knowledge to fantastically crafted third party stories of unlikely relationships and people who just aren't quite right. For anyone expecting an actual sequel, don't be surprised when opening track "Gay Bar, Part 2" kicks in full speed with a fist-pumping anthem and leaves you on a white knuckle ride down the I-92. Almost as if to stake their claim on mid-tempo hook-driven rock songs, E6 leaves it in overdrive for "We Were Witchy Witchy White Women" and manages to leave you there until the near perfect executed groove-ballad "Your Heat is Rising" makes you want to call up the cute girl at the office and finally ask her out on a date. Or at least sway side to side and put it on repeat for who knows... four hours. Drummer Percussion World takes a page from Roger Taylor on "Face Cuts" and lays down an epic new wave groove that will bring any fan of Queen's "Under Pressure" to their knees while keyboard scientist Tait Nucleus? assists with ear-catching hooks. We see glimpses of familiar territory on tracks like "Graphic Designer" and "Heavy Woman," giving guitarists The Colonel and Johnny Nashinal room to be flashy without being redundant or cliché. Bassist Smorgasbord! drops a spidery bass line on "Translatlantic Flight" to switch gears and the band closes out with "Making Progress," the perfect marriage of all of the band's influences. Think ELO with way more sass.

The guitars are honed to a thick but not muddy, loud without being overbearing dynamic while the rhythm section is kept punchy and loose, allowing for the other elements of the bands sound to have some breathing room. The flow of songs is just enough to keep you on your toes in anticipation without shocking you into losing your head-nodding capabilities. Solid without a boring patch of filler all the way through, Electric Six have set a standard for creating an album that appeals to anyone who has an appreciation for a song that will stick in your head and a swagger that just can't be messed with. In a time where the industry is full of self- loathing eyeliner swathed gloom and doom, E6 come to the rescue to prove once again that rock & roll belongs to the decadent, fun-loving filthy bastards that got the whole ball rolling in the first place.