It took me about four years to get into Electric 6, mainly because Danger! High Voltage! is, if not a novelty song, close enough if you need one. What converted me was the discovery that E6 are basically AC/DC on acid and possibly sleep deprivation. They bring the riffs and every other song is about fucking, with the additional benefit of strange, original and thought-provoking lyrics (admittedly, the thought is usually "WTF?").Exterminate is a bit more polished and commercial than previous albums, but having been absolutely shat on by critics and fans alike for the grossly underrated Switzerland, they seem to have bowed to the demands of the fratboys derided in It's Showtime! and brought back the giant riffs and shouting. However, for those of us who actually liked Switzerland, there's still plenty of relatively subtle, poppy material and electronica. Supposedly, the theme of the album is "excess" (write me 6000 words on the theme of "excess" by the end of today, two weeks detention). The lyrics appear to have, if not story arcs - this is not a Tom Waits review - a self-contained motif, as opposed to shrieking about fire and America and stuff (not that there's anything wrong with that). That doesn't mean I have any fucking idea what they're on about; although there does seem to be a significant whinge about women who are just too demanding (Kukuxumushu, White Train, Lenny Kravitz... I mean, suck it up, dude), there's still plenty of senseless rhyming for the people who like that sort of thing (Rip It, Dirty Looks). Along the way there are Easter Eggs like "Satan destroys you/but Jesus puts you in a bowl and smokes you" (White Train) and the title of this post (Kukuxumushu). Even the songs that are a bit less good may have irresistible hooks (Dance Pattern) or amusing lyrics (Fabulous People).
I wanted to post a selection of tracks that would represent the range of styles here, but quickly realised I would just end up posting the whole album, and if I do that I'm never going to get another Australian tour. So I chose these two as covering the rock-electronica spectrum:
Rip It - YAAAAAAAY RIFFS!!!
Broken Machine - Emo electronica, Gary Numan stylee. You know you're chronically depressed when you think shit like this is really profound. Help me, I'm turning emo!
I've been an impoverished student for the last five years and therefore missed their last tour. For the love of Zod, buy this album!
Stumble It!
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