Evil Cowards- Covered in Gas

ARTIST: Evil Cowards

ALBUM: Covered in Gas

LABEL: Metropolis Records

REVIEWER: Matthew J.

DATE: 9-23-09

Evil Cowards is the new project from Tyler Spencer, better known as Electric Six's Dick Valentine, and Fall on Your Sword's William Bates. Together, they craft a gritty, dirty disco-flavored synthpop, full of hand-claps, bass grooves, Spencer's throaty baritone rock vocals, and the odd saxophone solo. It's catchy and fun stuff, possibly even catchier and more fun than Spencer's work in Electric Six. "Love Pigs" is all growls and grooves, as filthy and fantastic as its title suggests, and "Sex Wars" is an infectious sonic social disease you won't mind contracting, thanks to a series of winking metaphors that manage to be clever instead of corny, not to mention a guitar hook that recalls Tina Weymouth's work in Tom Tom Club. "Classon Ave. Robots" breaks out the funk with a rollicking horn section, "I'm Not Scared of Flying Saucers" combines Spencer's best Tom Jones belting with robotic '80s electro beats, and "Soldiers of Satan" is straight-up disco gone evil, a mutant love child of KISS and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. There's even a bit of dreamy surrealism on the end with "Zora and Nora," a ballad of flying lesbian teenagers that sounds like something Valentine would come up with after going on a bender with Legendary Pink Dots vocalist Edward Ka-Spel; it's even got the analog synthesizer arpeggios looping in the background. If that wasn't all deliciously weird enough, Bates finishes things off by howling out "Chopping Up the Teacher" in a thick Cockney accent; musically speaking, it doesn't have much in common with the rest of the album, but it's irreverent and funny and bears something of a resemblance to The Toy Dolls. Punk, disco, synthpop...it's all rock 'n' roll, as far as the Evil Cowards are concerned, so crank it up and get the party started.

Check out the Evil Cowards at www.evilcowards.net.