The Beat Surrender

Upon first listening to this album I didn’t trust the singer’s accent; to me he sounded Dutch in parts, and Mexican in other bits. I thought he was putting it on to try and sound cool or pull birds. Then I found out a bit more about the band; turns out they’re a Japanese threesome, which may explain the way the singer sounds. He’ll have had different tutors, won’t he? It also helps explain the lyrical content of the songs – some of it can sound a bit not-quite-right, rather ‘lost in translation’ if you will.

Electric Eel Shock have got a heavy, stonerish sound to them in parts, and I think this is something they could do with exploring further, making more use of their down-tuned bass guitar sound. Demolition Records’ site describes them as the “full on head banging rock and roll monster from Japan�, but these sites always hype their bands up to eleven, don’t they?

The album is entertaining enough, but I’ll have to mention a couple of tracks in particular. It ends with a version of Black Sabbath’s classic ‘Iron Man ’ which horrified me and my mate Craig. I can still see his face, he was appalled. It starts off okay – sounding pretty much like the original – then it speeds up and goes all ‘funky’. A disco version of Iron Man? Madness. We had our heads in our hands and it took a few beers to get over it, I can tell you. I reckon they’d get vigorously bottled right off stage if they tried this one at a biker rally.

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