If you’ve got a friend who’s still on the fence about whether Electric Callboy are genius or trash, all you need to do is silently hand them a copy of ‘Tanzneid’ and they’ll be converted. Well, okay: if they haven’t already been convinced by a live show, then this tactic will be hopeless because the seventh outing for the hyperactive Germans is a close to one of their live sets as you’re going to get. The good side of this is that ‘Tanzneid’ is an hour of pure adrenaline which really does capture the live experience, upping your heart rate with each track like a shot of caffeine to the heart delivered Pulp Fiction style. However, there’s not a lot of tracks on there that haven’t been released as singles already, or aren’t already very familiar to anyone who caught then at Download or on their UK dates. Think of ‘Tanzneid’ as the sampler for the full Callboy product, a live album in all but recording style: we get the newer hits, we get some songs we haven’t heard before, and it’s all wrapped up in a neat glittery bow made of fun.
Let’s re-tread the familiar ground first. ‘RATATATA’, their collaboration with BABYMETAL, is a massive jam, and while teaming the cute vocals from the fearless warriors of the Fox God with a gruffer male singer isn’t exactly revolutionary, it always works. Teaming two bands with a high octane performance style together is a tried and tested winner. There’s also ‘Let The Good Times Roll’, which brings in The Offspring for inspiration. ‘Elevator Operator’ is practically a staple at this point, and their techno charged love letter to romantic assignations in lifts is obviously a huge banger. Fan favourite ‘Still Waiting’, their Sum 41 cover, is always a joy no matter how many times we’ve heard it, and it doesn’t suffer when it’s taken away from the stage. Regulars on their Tanzneid World Tour, ‘Revery’ brings the spookiness and is probably the most conventional of the new crop of tracks, and ‘Hypercharged’ is guaranteed pit fuel. So far, so fantastic, but not exactly anything we didn’t know or love already.
However, much like a sudden costume change or switching to Schlager music for a few minutes mid-set, there’s always something up Electric Callboy’s sequinned sleeves. Six songs on ‘Tanzneid’ were veiled in secrecy online on the run-up to release, and of those, one is a live favourite awarded a studio recording for the first time. We are, of course, referring to anti-romance song ‘The Way You Are’, which glitches between Boyzone-like sweetness and demonic howling, as if you were dating a horror movie villain with a secret second life as a serial killer. It’s hilarious live, and while the complete 180 in emotion loses some of the joke when you’re listening on headphones, it’s testament to the versatility of the Callboys.
The real new songs, ‘Heartclub’ and ‘The Saviour’, hearken back to the days when Electric Callboy were, more or less, a regular metal band. Neither plays on the innuendo and whimsy which permeates their last album or their big hits, and both can be summed up as “really good synth metal tracks.” All of Callboy’s humour would fall flat if they weren’t also absolutely stunning musicians to back up their silliness, and adding two straight tracks serves as a timely reminder that they are more than just the gimmicks. ‘Heartclub’ shreds with cult-leader sinister growling and a vital energy, and ‘The Saviour’ is a future anthem in the making, combining everything we love about the band with riffs for days, a shout-able chorus, unrelenting positivity and a healthy topping of Euro-pop. If they show up with a video for this one in which they dress as eighties Jesus, don’t be surprised.
Before accusations of not being able to count to six fly, there is another surprise. Or, to be more accurate: not really a surprise at all, if you’re a Callboy fan. The final four tracks are a takeover by their DJ alter-egos, Electric Bassboy, in the form of a set of dance remixes. It’s too easy to say they’re trashy when, if we’re being real, we’ll all be shouting along to these when they’re dropped at a club night. It feels like adding these at the end was the final ingredient in this live show sampler because there’s no way they’d be able to recreate the concert experience without a chance for a cheesy rave.
‘Tanzneid’ is, without a doubt, the most quintessentially Electric Callboy album to date: a version of their live shows that you can put in your pocket, packed with all the fun and skill that we’d expect from our favourite Germans. It’s a statement about where they’re at and what they’ve got to offer with their bananas live sets, and will leave no one in doubt of how ridiculously awesome they are.
KATE ALLVEY