Electric Six Fire Review

There's a lot of talk going around about music sounding samey and boring, with nothing new happening. If that's your opinion you should be forced to listen to this album. Has anybody ever sounded quite like Electric Six?They are bizarre, outrageous and original. A bumpy ride into the dark heart of the urban disco, where Saturday night entertainment turns into a desperate search for kicks.

It's the singing that really marks them out. The music is a mix of raw and lumpy rock funk with some cheesy synthesisers spread on top. It's played with a thumping conviction rather than a light touch. You've heard guitar solos like this before. But that voice...where does it come from? Grotesquely mannered white soul roaring and shrieking coupled with an extraordinary camp falsetto. It's compulsive and weirdly convincing.

They are not afraid to be refreshingly tasteless, politically incorrect and just plain strange. Highlights include the thoroughly peculiar "She's White" ('like the light'?!), the heavy metal unease of "Naked Pictures Of Your Mother" (with a shout of 'solo!' just before the guitar solo), and "Gay Bar", probably their best song."Danger! High Voltage", the big hit single is actually one of the weaker tracks.

"Getting Into The Jam" is when it all starts to make sense. Singer Dick Valentine sounds like a man who really might do something extreme. Or as he puts it elsewhere 'I'm a man torn between vengeance and fashion'. He certainly sounds torn between something.

"Synthesiser", the last track on the album, is like Peter Gabriel wandering incoherently round a dancefloor, gearing up for a massive hangover. At the end of Fire you'releft wondering what the hell was that? But you definitely want to play the whole album again.

Make no mistake, Electric Six are serious. They have more edge than most po-faced rock poseurs and they're delivering this edge straight to the charts.

I don't know what it is, but I like it.