Electric Six, The Flavor That Kills

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Mark Wright

Electric Six in a stairwell.

Electric Six

media release: Electric Six. The band that put out an album a year for what seemed like 666 years. The most reliable act in show business, there was simply no question that each year would bring another E6 record on Metropolis Records. Mayans based their calendar on Electric Six. Flocks of migrating birds used the new Electric Six record as a homing device. Small time criminals were sentenced to four to seven E6 albums with time off for wonderful behavior. In a business so fickle, so unreliable, so difficult to navigate…the only constant was Electric Six. There was always an album a year…

….until there wasn’t.

After five years had gone by since the last Electric Six offering, there was chatter. “Electric Six just doesn’t have it anymore.” “Electric Six has really let me down.” “Gotye will have an album before Electric Six does.”

As we all know…talk is cheap. And bullshit walks. And now there’s a new goddamn Electric Six record out and it’s good, Jack. Real good.

Behold Turquoise is here, the long awaited studio album return of Electric Six!!! Perhaps the catchiest, brightest album in their catalog, Electric Six reminds you how profoundly fun they can be, hitting you over the head with fourteen pop explosions guaranteed to burrow their way into your dance hole.

The recording of Turquoise began in January of 2020, but you know, something distracted us for a couple of years shortly after starting the record. The pandemic tacked a bit of time onto the schedule of this project and Electric Six certainly felt the need to tap into the collective feelings of the time in tracks like “Panic! Panic!” and the title track “Turquoise”.

The overall vibe of Turquoise ranges from the infectious pop of “Take Me To The Sugar” and “Staten Island Ass Squad”, to the heavy rock of “Child Of Hunger” and “Skywriting”, to the Springsteeny goodness of “Units of Time”. Electric Six is a band for all tastes, all times and all sizes.

The pandemic slowed us all down and ripped time into shreds. It forced Electric Six to take a little time to look at itself in the mirror. And who did Electric Six see staring back? The answer? It saw Electric Six. It saw Turquoise. When a band finally makes an album this exciting, it doesn’t need to do anything else anymore anytime soon ever again.

But it will…..Electric Six can never die. And we are still the band that does one album a year….if you re-define “year”. Which we do.

Turquoise, Electric Six’s long awaited 15th studio album, was released in the fall of 2023 on Metropolis Records.   

Delivering a mix of rock, soul, melody, punk, and a dash of classic psychedelic sensibilities, The Flavor That Kills released their edgy, genre-fluid album Book of Secrits (purposely misspelled) in 2024. Hard at work on their forthcoming follow up album, Thunderbird Lodge, the new single “Spin” is just a taste, and was released on all formats May 4, 2025.

The Madison, WI based unit is Ryan Corcoran-lead vocals, guitar, piano, Educational Davis-guitars, synthesizers, Christian Burnson-bass, vocals, synthesizers, Jon Paul-guitars and synthesizers, and Eric Hartz-drums and synthesizers.   

The band's fourth release, and first with new synthesizer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Paul, is set to be delivered in Winter 2025 on Shortwave Records. “Spin” was recorded in Madison at DNA studios and at Tiny Telephone in Oakland, California, by Beau Sorenson (Taylor Swift, Bob Mould, Superchunk) and mixed by Tom Lord-Alge (The Rolling Stones, Pink, Santana, Weezer, Peter Gabriel, Blink 182). 

The new album carries on where their previous album “Book of Secrits” left off, as the human civilization erodes into complete oblivion, destroyed by an endless abyss of unintended consequences. The single “Spin” is about the permutations of evil, and how a predator species will worship gods that use its parishioners as prey.  

NEXT SHOW: The Flavor That Kills will open up for Electric Six at the High Noon Saloon on May 23, 2025, at 8pm in Madison.