Electric Six : Zodiac

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/electricsixzodiac.jpg" alt=" " />Electric Six go funky as Dick Valentine <span style="font-weight: normal">ups his lyrical humor to its best level in years.</span> ...
8.0 Metropolis
2010 

Electric Six : Kill Being prolific can often hurt even a good artist, as listeners can’t keep up and their live shows become diluted – witness Robert Pollard (QRO album review).  But it can also keep a great band chugging forward with oodles of energy – witness Los Campesinos! (QRO spotlight on).  Detroit’s Electric Six are certainly prolific, with an album a year since 2005.  But all records have been in the shadow of their 2003 debut Fire and its great singles "Gay Bar" and "Danger! High Voltage!" (QRO video).  Recent records Kill (QRO review) and Flashy (QRO review) have been enjoyable, but one is usually only looking for a few choice cuts.  But with Zodiac, Electric Six go funky as singer Dick Valentine (QRO interview) ups his lyrical humor to its best level in years.

Kill and Flashy have seen Electric Six go harder, more Detroit Rock City, but Zodiac sees the Motown funk, right from the start with the call to party-rock "After Hours".  "Doom and Gloom and Doom and Gloom" has a nighttime sax solo straight out of the eighties, while there’s a big funk to "Jam It In the Hole" and "The Rubberband Man".  It can get a bit much from the relentless outfit, such as with the over-disco on "Love Song For Myself".

But Zodiac has an even more potent weapon in the voice of singer Dick Valentine.  Some of the early humor of "Gay Bar" had been lost in the intervening years (such as on Flashy‘s not-as-good mock-sequel, "Gay Bar, Part 2"), but it’s there in spades on Zodiac.  If any band was gonna do an ode to the most pasteurized of dairy products, it would be Electric Six & "American Cheese" (they’ve already sung about "McDonnellzzzzz" & named an earlier record ‘Switzerland’), as they even evoke Weird Al Yankovic’s "Fat".  The only better title has to be "Clusterfuck!", which has one of Valentine’s greatest lyrics, ever, "You seem to be accruing / More penalties that a Boston Bruin".  And Zodiac ends by finally giving Thanksgiving its own slice of mock-rock, the excellent "Talking Turkey" (rhyming the title at one point with, "She’s smoking my jerky!"…).

Electric Six work at a feverish road pace as well, with multiple tours a year, and have built up a fearsome live show thanks to ecstatic fans.  The prolific recording hadn’t produced the same results until now, with one of their best records yet, Zodiac.

MP3 Stream: "Talking Turkey"

{audio}/mp3/files/Electric Six – Talking Turkey.mp3{/audio}

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