Singer Dick Valentine surfs recklessly atop it all with a cocky awareness and blatant disregard of any establishment outside of a neon-lit nightclub.

Electric Six
“Señor Smoke”

After the European release of Electric Six’s “Señor Smoke” over a year ago, the album finally hits American soil next week. From the first track, “Rock & Roll Evacuation,” onward, the entire album is laced with everything from dance-inciting to mocking absurd politicians.

The Detroit quintet lets loose another face-smashing, ass-shaking record that shows that they, unlike many other bands, know their shit and will rub it in the faces of everyone within reach.

At times, many times, the line between sense and nonsense becomes a drunken blur, but Electric Six ultimately seduces, or muscles, the listener back to the electric reality. Once sucked inside this head-pounding and blinding place, it is nearly impossible to refuse it or resist moving to it. The ridiculousness that pervades starts to make sense, and the synthesizers that mimic those from the ’80s become tolerable.

The lines that singer Dick Valentine belts out carry a cynical social relevance as well as irresistible urges. This is by far the band’s most honed album, showing signs of maturation, or at least creating that facade.

Whether it’s a taste for gritty rock or overboard dance music, “Señor Smoke” has pleasure riding on the tip of a sharp tongue, and its aim is universal. The album really drives the point deep with a climaxing version of Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga.”

Raw guitars blend with assaulting synthesizer lines producing a dynamic liquid sound, powerful enough to pump a waterbed to the point of eruption. The rhythm section drives like the coin-operated vibrating bed in a motel room, while Valentine surfs recklessly atop it all with a cocky awareness and blatant disregard of any establishment outside of a neon-lit nightclub.

Electric Six is the kind of band that takes its music — but not itself — seriously, and it makes one hell of a potent cocktail.

Its poignant passion kicks down doors, steals girlfriends and never goes to sleep before sunrise. “Señor Smoke” smolders where the 2003 release of “Fire” left off, as the band take its dirty Detroit rock ‘n’ roll, and put it in a flashy new suit.

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