If Electric Six never contributed anything further to pop
music besides "Danger! High Voltage" (one of the most immediate
crazed singles in years) the band would still have the distinction of being one
of the most unique-sounding one-hit wonders from 16 years ago. Fire doesn't
necessarily offer proof that this won't be Electric Six's ultimate fate, but it
does suggest that they have more tricks up their sleeve than might be expected.
It's true that "Danger! High Voltage" is easily the best song on Fire,
an addictive mix of stylishness and silliness that sounds like some kind of
bizarre love triangle between the Rapture, Tenacious D, and Andrew W.K., but
several songs work nearly as well. "Dance Commander’s” big arena rock
choruses, zooming keyboards, and yelped falsettos recall their big hit without
merely copying it; "Improper Dancing" is surprisingly funky, with its
brittle guitars and slick disco feel providing the perfect setting for the
band's macho flippancy. "Gay Bar" is more on the garage/punk side of
their sound, confusing war and violence with sex and dancing, with loads of
adolescent sexual innuendo (but is there any other kind?), as is "Getting
into the Jam," which is almost certainly not about discovering a classic
mod-punk band. The power ballad "I'm the Bomb" might be the
second-best song on Fire, awash in gurgling synths and shiny guitars as singer
Dick Valentine shamelessly delivers lines like "Who elected you judge and
jury in the body of a beautiful girl?" The rest of the album has an appealingly
throwaway quality, spanning the new wave sendups "Synthesizer" and
"Electric Demons in Love" as well as the campy arena rock of
"Fashion and Vengeance" and "She's White." Though they're
not on par with the band's best moments, they do hold up much better than might
be anticipated, and prove that Electric Six's modus operandi of inflating rock
clichés to grotesque proportions, adding a dash of tongue-in-cheek pomposity,
and then laughing at the results can generate more than just a great single. Granted,
that single is still the reason to own Fire, but fans of that song probably
won't feel burned by the rest of the album.
