Boots Electric - Honkey Kong
Genre: Dance/Rock
Rating: 4.5/10
Eagles of Death Metal are certainly an acquired taste. Their unique brand of danceable desert rock is highly tongue in cheek and overtly sexualised leaving many to dismiss them as a watered down cliched version of Queens Of The Stone Age. Whilst the artistic merits of the band are debatable the real focus is to make party friendly feel good tunes which they do in abundance. Boots Electric is the new project of Eagles Of Death Metal outspoken frontman Jesse Hughes and sees him for the first time step out of the shadow of his mentor and contributor Josh Homme.
As far as themes go Boots Electric continues to play it safe aiming itself down the road of Eagles Of Death Metal mostly focusing on sleaze and gimmicky rock n roll cliches. The main difference is actually in the framework in which these tunes are presented. Whilst Eagles Of Death Metal are known for their heavier lofi guitar driven sound Boots Electric seems to favour slicker electronic means. Keyboards, Synths and drum machines seem to replace guitars and drum kits for the most part making the whole record ooze an almost techno feel. Unfortunately this takes away the swagger that makes the cheesey over the top posturing bareable and instead your left with quite an embarassing cluster of songs. It's not all bad certain tunes have their own simplistic charm but on the whole the music is pretty tame at best. The tunes themselves aren't as hedonistic and rather than being sleazy often show a level of romance but with the cheesey electro hooks this turns the tunes into limp whiney ballads that don't really suit Hughe's. These more mature reflections on love could be seen as Hughes expressing more honest emotions but unfortunately they are expressed in such an overpowering style that it isn't really affecting at all. The few highlights that are on the record are quickly forgotten when tracks like "No Ffun" and "Dreams Tonight" force the listener into such powerful cringes that the catchier moments fall by the wayside. Highlights like the opener "Complexity" with its throbbing synths and the grittier Wolfmotheresque "Oh Girl" are not enough to redeem the album. Whilst its interesting to see Hughes left to his own devices the results are fairly inconsistent and the electronic aspects just don't stand up to repeated listens with the novelty wearing off pretty quickly.
Overall Boots Electric's debut is rather lacklustre. Whilst there are a couple of catchy tunes there is very little substance to the whole record and its likely to be shelved and forgotten very shortly. Avoid wasting your money.
Download: "Complexity" "Oh Girl"
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