Album Review: Electric Six - "Streets Of Gold"

 

It's rare that a year passes without us getting sent an Electric Six album to review but perhaps unsurprisingly given the pandemic, 2020 was indeed that year. So to make up for lost time, the band are putting two albums out this year with this covers album to be followed before the end of December by an album of originals.

As with a lot of covers albums, this is very much a mixed bag. Sad to say that unfortunately there's a fair few clunkers on here - Dick Valentine's voice really doesn't suit the group's covers of Fleetwood Mac's Little Lies or the Jam's That's Entertainment leaving them both as being somewhat painful on the ears while their takes on INXS' Don't Change and Talking Heads' Slippery People are just dull frankly. Most disappointing though is their cover of Kiss' Strutter which should have been an open goal for E6 but just completely lacks the punch of the original. There are also re-recordings of Danger High Voltage and Gay Bar to finish the album off which don't add anything to the originals and just feel unnecessary frankly.

However, when they get it right the results are decent enough - tunes like Roky Erikson's Click Your Fingers Applauding The Show and Alice Cooper's No More Mr Nice Guy were arguably custom built for Electric Six to cover and they do them justice while their cover of Love's mariachi shuffle Maybe The People Would Be The Times is a surprising triumph with the group capturing the essence of the original and giving it a 21st century makeover to good effect. Similarly, their cover of the Pixies' Hey works much better than it really has any right to and the turn in a suitably riffed up and OTT cover of Tin Machine's Under The God.

A real hit and miss affair overall though which to be honest is probably only really of interest to Electric Six die-hards I'm afraid. In the meantime though, we await that originals album with interest.

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