Formally known as the Wildbunch, Detroit’s own dirty disco-rock heroes, Electric Six finally get around to releasing their debut, aptly called Fire. This past winter the local quintet caused ripples of joy through Britain and the continent when their single “Danger! High Voltage” surprised everybody outside of Michigan by violently taking the charts hostage with its relentlessly sleazy beat and ’80s cheese sax solo.
That track, with its classic opening lines “Fire in the disco / Fire in the Taco Bell” and obligatory guest vocals by a certain Mr. Jack White, forms the centerpiece of Fire, a storming party record that is unlikely to find a peer the rest of this year.
With song titles like “Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother),” “Electric Demons in Love” and the subversively catchy surf guitar driven “Gay Bar,” not to mention their ultra-serious, savagely over-the-top approach, it would be all too easy to dismiss the Six as a one trick novelty act. And while you can’t help thinking of Tenacious D or Andrew W.K. while Fire is spinning, the band’s white boy funk antics are undeniably seductive.
Instead of killing the joys of Electric Six with postmodern debates about whether to take these guys seriously, let’s just shake our rumps while marveling that a single act has miraculously reconciled the tripolar opposites of ’70s music – disco, arena rock and punk. Not an easy or dismissible achievement by any means.
Rating: 4 stars.