Album: Electric Six

Señor Smoke, WARNER BROTHERS

What went wrong with Electric Six? A couple of naggingly infectious hit singles, a string of acclaimed festival performances, and then just when they should be gearing up for the second-album, their hard-won credibility is effectively destroyed by two unfathomably poor singles choices, in the shape of the charmless "Vibrator" and their ghastly remake of Queen's "Radio Ga Ga". Both are included on Señor Smoke, a collection of pumping punk-pop and funk-rock riffs whose appeal resides largely in frontman Dick Valentine's histrionic delivery of often ludicrous lyrics. Valentine's songs sound like slogans bumping haphazardly into each other as non sequiturs pile up precariously. "Are you ready for gasoline? Are you ready for big, big savings? Are you ready to bite me?" runs one pile; another attempts to rein together references to Harry Truman, "electric underwear" and nostalgia for The Backstreet Boys. It sounds as if it should be fun, but the only track that packs the punch of a "Gay Bar" o

What went wrong with Electric Six? A couple of naggingly infectious hit singles, a string of acclaimed festival performances, and then just when they should be gearing up for the second-album, their hard-won credibility is effectively destroyed by two unfathomably poor singles choices, in the shape of the charmless "Vibrator" and their ghastly remake of Queen's "Radio Ga Ga". Both are included on Señor Smoke, a collection of pumping punk-pop and funk-rock riffs whose appeal resides largely in frontman Dick Valentine's histrionic delivery of often ludicrous lyrics. Valentine's songs sound like slogans bumping haphazardly into each other as non sequiturs pile up precariously. "Are you ready for gasoline? Are you ready for big, big savings? Are you ready to bite me?" runs one pile; another attempts to rein together references to Harry Truman, "electric underwear" and nostalgia for The Backstreet Boys. It sounds as if it should be fun, but the only track that packs the punch of a "Gay Bar" or "High Voltage" is the opener "Rock and Roll Evacuation", a blend of fuzz-guitar whine, sirens and sarcasm which features the observation, "This is an evil generation/ Rock'n'roll evacuation". Most of the time, though, Señor Smoke just sounds like Jack Black's comedy combo Tenacious D doing an impression of The Stranglers.