I don't know how it happened, but I suddenly found myself obsessed with the band, Electric Callboy. Actually, I know how it happened, but I'm not sure why.
I first heard them on Octane on SXM. When I heard "We Got the Moves" I thought to myself, are these guys metalheads doing rave music? Sure enough, that's exactly what it is. It was a relief when I looked them up on YouTube and confirmed that yes, while their music is more or less serious, they don't take themselves very seriously. But watch that video. It's a song, like many of their others, that you wouldn't think I'd be interested in . . . and then the metal kicks in.
(Why Eskimo Callboy? That was their old name. Someone must have told them that it was insulting to the Inuit, because as far as I can tell, they just changed the offensive name on their own. No one told them to do that. They seem like really nice guys.)
So I dug deeper and found "Pump It," which makes me laugh every time I hear it. They take the joy of working out to a whole new level. I couldn't stop myself. I moved on to "Hypa Hypa." Goddam, these guys make catchy music, and they look like they're having a lot of fun making it. That's the way it should be.
I looked up the lyrics to these songs and discovered that, much like Andrew WK insisted that we all party, Electric Callboy wants us to rave. And they make a compelling argument. I'm not a rave kind of guy, but I feel this music flowing through me like crazy.
Then I saw, fresh off the press, that they worked with Babymetal. I'm not the biggest Babymetal fan, but I like their work. "Ratatata" is a near magical collaboration. By now I have added these songs to my Spotify, and nothing wakes me up and gets me moving faster than Electric Callboy. I wonder if they can defeat a hangover, like Korpiklaani can.
And then I found "Spaceman." This is possibly the catchiest of their songs. That spaceship with the mustache is fucking glorious. So is the idea of a big bang bass guitar, whatever that is.
"Tekkno Train" is a delightful take on Snowpiercer, but my absolute favorite part of this song is when they start chanting "choo-choo-choo-choo-choo," which is absolutely ridiculous, and I love it. Oh yeah, and when the one dude grabs the piece of cake and squishes it in his hand before violently throwing it on the floor. You'll notice in some of these videos that they are a force of fun destruction.
"Everytime We Touch" starts off as a love song and then takes a sudden left turn that never ceases to crack me up. And the complicated handshake at the end . . . Jesus.
"HURRIKAN" is a bit of a weirdo. I'm not sure I'd listen to this while driving, but that video is fucking great. I'm 100% into it. It was at that moment I thought, Oh shit. These guys are German. They sing really good in English.
"Fuckboi" is a change in direction. It's a bit of a throwback. It reminds me of the mid-Nineties. It's a more or less serious song but enjoyable.
They do write some serious music, like "Hate/Love" and "Mindreader" and "Parasite." You may notice something about two of these songs: they sound influenced by Linkin Park. They are. The lead singer lists Chester Bennington as a major influence to him. For example. I felt chills listening to that. "Love/Hate" sounds so much like Linkin Park I had to check to make sure it's not a cover. It's not.
I had you listen to a lot of music tonight (if you followed the links), but I saved my favorite for last. "Arrow of Love" is the most aggressively positive song I've ever heard.
All of these songs are fairly new, from their last two albums. It turns out that their lead singer is actually new to the band, that they've been around a lot longer than I thought. So I looked up some of their older music, and it's vastly different. They used to be straightforward metal. Take "Transilvanian Cunthugger" for instance. That's pretty hardcore. If I were younger, I'd be into their older songs more. As I am now old and softening at the edges, I prefer their newer music. I wonder how their older fans feel about that change. I probably would have felt betrayed at a younger age. Now I'm a lot more laid back. I would be totally cool with it now.
Oh yeah. Why did I call this one "Porno Metal"? I looked them up on Wikipedia, and people describe their music in so many different ways. However, they self-identify as porno metal. I hate labels, but something tells me they had their tongues planted firmly in cheek when they came up with that, kind of like Alestorm with Scottish pirate metal. Or me saying Eye Cutter is splatter SF. All I can say is, I'm very much into it. I hope you are now, too.
And for the record, my musical taste is rock in general, metal and punk specifically. I guess I should list alternative, too, particularly grunge. But in my opinion, Nirvana is punk and Alice in Chains is metal. You get the idea. So my interest in Electric Callboy is unusual but not totally alien.
[EDIT: So it turns out that I actually *have* heard these guys before, but I just didn't know it was them. You've heard of them, too. I heard this song everywhere back when it first came out. Holy shit, right? Also, did you know their drummer won Europe's version of The Bachelor?!?!?!?!?!]
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