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Thursday, 8 November 2012

Electric 6 - Absolute Pleasure


It's a harsh fact that very few bands are able to maintain a stable level of fame and fortune.
Most follow a trend, and that trend is that one year they can be riding high in the charts, walking down red carpets, selling out stadiums and drawing the attention of the paparazzi like flies around the proverbial.
Then the next year they're headlining bars, being featured in 'where are they now' articles in music magazines and getting restraining orders that state that they are not to go within ten feet of a professional photographer.
There are of course exceptions to the rule.
Some do cling onto a a healthy level of patronage from fans and manage to carve themselves a niche in the music business that no one seems to be able to prise them from.
Others, like Electric 6. stick a middle finger up to waves of popularity, latest trends, and those who base their lives around aligning themselves to whose hot and whose not.
Instead they tour, make an album, tour, make an album, tour and then make another album before touring again ad infinitum, and they do this with style, panache, and a bleary eyed wink to the whole sordid world of the music business.
So in other words by dint of not giving much of a fuck they are in fact far more relevant than they are often credited as being.
They exist to entertain and party with their fans, and it really is as simple as that, and if you consider that being able to entertain is far more important than the trappings of fame then it's hard not to accept that these guys may well be one of the best acts in the world.
Look back on their career and regardless of chart positions it's a fact that they have yet to release a poor album.
So far there hasn't even been a hint of filler on anything.
Live they give one hundred percent every night that they play, and then they push it harder again to ensure that when their fans leave that they don't just think that they have seen a good show, but instead know deep down that they have.
There's no half measures, no quarter given when they hit a stage, and now we have proof of that with their latest release, the career encompassing Absolute Pleasure.
Originally it was allegedly supposed to be a double album with the first disc featuring their debut 'Fire' being played in its totality, and the second being made up of the bands favourites from the rest of the albums.
Unfortunately that wasn't to be, and instead its a seventeen track hit and run molotov cocktail of a live set that screams what Electric 6 are all about.
A schizophrenic mix of punk, funk disco and rock.
My only complaint about this album is that the title doesn't really convey how good it is.
They should have called it 'We are fuckin' awesome. You know it'.

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