Electric Attitude, Laser Laser Laser Beams

I’ve been dancing around it a while in my head, and I just can’t think of a friendly, nice way to talk around it, so I’m just going to say it: I don’t like the guitars on Electric Attitude’s latest EP, Laser Laser Laser Beams. At least, I don’t like ’em as much as I feel like I should.

And that sucks, because I do like a lot of the rest of it — the songs themselves are nicely funky/sleazy, the bass is down-low and up-front, and the lyrics work better than they really should, considering frontman Blake Shepard is a skinny white guy talking about sex (and, tangentially, sci-fi and gettin’ down on the dancefloor). Shepard himself, in fact, is a surprise just by the fact that he can actually pull this off, with a down-and-dirty howl/mutter that’s equal parts Mick Jagger, Chris Robinson, and ’80s glam-metal, all rolled up into an unassuming, t-shirt-wearing package.

That guitar, though… Guitarist Jordan Bell does just fine when he’s throwing in funky whacka-chicka rhythms, definitely, but on every single track on here, right when the song gets rolling, he throws in an unnecessary, melody-line solo that doesn’t really do much except to kill time and suck the momentum out of the song. I’m probably going to get punched in the face for it the next time I run into these guys, but that’s just how it hits me. The rhythm parts are pretty good, but the soloing feels unnecessary and pointless.

On top of that, it just sounds too, well, clean for most of the disc. The best tracks on here, “Shot on the Dance Floor,” “Robot Girl,” and “Pistolwhip” are dirty and raw, and they work brilliantly because of it. Funk that’s clean and slick is a seriously difficult thing to pull off, in my book, and it works a whole heck of a lot better when you dirty it up some, dragging the sound through the mud.

Which explains somewhat why I was more knocked over by Electric Attitude’s live show than this EP; live they can play things loose and fuzzy and halfway messy, and I honestly think that’s when they’re at their best. They’re a party band, a band that can grab hold of an apathetic crowd and get ’em dancing their asses off, and I was hoping more of that would translate to the tape.

I should note, though, that there is some truly promising, cool stuff here, stuff that points to hope for the future. “Shot on the Dance Floor,” in particular, comes off like the Black Keys gone disco or the Black Crowes gone Eurotrash, with Kwesi Sackey’s thundering bass and Adam Gilleland’s stomping drums shoving the whole thing forward like an out-of-control tour bus while Bell’s guitars roar and rumble and Shepard yelps and croons. It’s distorted and bluesy, less overtly funky than some of the the rest of the tracks here, and it’s got me stepping backwards for repeated listens. Hell, I even like the electronic “gunshot” drums they throw in at one point.

So, if I haven’t already alienated the band, I’ve got one request/bit of advice for the Electric Attitude crew: skip the solos, let things sound a bit rawer and looser, and aim for more like “Dance Floor.” Because an album’s worth of that would be freaking great, I swear.