Eagles of Death Metal Kill

The Eagles of Death Metal have followed up their debut album “Peace, love, death metal” with “Death by Sexy.” A fast paced rock and roll ride, full of all the perks that being a rock star provides.

The first time around the EODM, composed of childhood friends Josh Homme on drums, who is guitar and vocals for The Queens of the Stone Age, and front man Jesse Hughes, singer and guitarist, seemed like they were out to revel in hard hitting beats and old school rock and roll playing into every stereotype one could think of.

“Death by Sexy” picks up right where “Peace, love, death metal” left off- rocking. These two are suburb musicians that find a balance between a jamming and structured pentatonic-scaled solos.

Hughes revels in his twangy southern style voice, which often emulates Elvis, singing about young girls and… well more young girls, clearly the preoccupation of Hughes.

One diffence between “Death by sexy,” and “Peace, love, death metal” is the clarity. This new release is much more polished and clean. Whether intentional or not, the EODM cleaned up the crunchy overdrive ever-present on their debut.

This effect will probably draw new fans, making the album more radio friendly and easy to swallow. While at the same time the EODM produce the same driving guitar riffs, rhythmic drum beats and swooning vocals that hard-core fans have come to love.

The CD kicks off with “I want you so hard (the boys bad news), a rumbling song that rips from Hughes’ falsetto voice to a deep bass chorus provided by Brody Dalle, of “leave him alone because the boys bad new.” It’s ridiculous, silly and pure EODM.

Other stand out songs on the album are: “Cherry Cola,” where Hughes’ distorted guitar takes listeners for a sporadic ride before rolling into a squealing solo. “Poor Doggie” features a bouncing baseline beat by Homme, with a rattling guitar and wailing lyrics that resemble the Rolling Stones.

This album isn’t so much a progression for the Eagles as just having fun at what they do best: rocking out. Homme has already achieved an amazing degree of success with Queens of the Stone Age. And with EODM there is clearly no pressure to grow.

The EODM are simply side project that Homme likes enough to just keep doing. And fortunately for listeners it is some of the best music on the market today. Widely unknown and pure, that is how the EODM like it.
7/10