When the title track opened, I immediately thought N.E.R.D.; that quirky use of bass and drums intended to make you move. Then it morphed into funky, low-slung sex, like Prince covering early Talking Heads. The keyboards provide a quasi-futuristic 70's effect in the background and you imagine a campy sci-fi picture soundtrack, or a newly-minted Pulp Fiction.
Overall, Death Connection (available July 8) is a solid EP, introducing the public to a group that we will definitely hear more from. Combining a disparate mix of influences and elements to good effect, the sound is familiar - but not enough; it's more of an evolution. Fusing inspiration from Gang of Four, LeTigre, The Stooges, The Ravonettes, and early 80's new wave (like The The), The Flesh has conjured up something remarkable.
"Love," the second track, is upbeat and decidedly more punk than the title track, interspersed with quirky keyboard spurts, and maintains its subtle groove of desperation well. It's a rock star pleading for dirty love in public, the place they love to do it the best. "Foes" is ingratiatingly moody with a quick-paced, almost Ludacris hip-hop style cadence book ended by sparse drawn-out vocals; with a little harem-like ditty thrown in every now and then for good measure.
"Copticon" is the only song over 3 minutes, and serves as the stereotypical concluding track; longer, more varied, and trying to really "get into the music." With its low strumming and brooding bass and drum and organ line, it reminded me of The The, and is a carefully orchestrated build-up of tension. It never really lets go until the end, and in the meantime, listeners are treated to a gloom and doom break down of the structure, a morph into a feedback-y guitar that is eerily reminiscent of the theme from the video game "Spyhunter," and then you reach the climax (literally and physically) of a building rant of exhortations that ends in "it's all over now," and the slow-dying strangling of the song.
The use of space in between beats really defines these songs, as the silence and pauses are used to good effect, and then filled in later on in the song by a sometimes swirling mix of bass, keyboards, and backing vocals. The off-kilter sound is noteworthy because it causes your body and limbs to gyrate in fits and jerks, creating an awkward beat to follow, or in a glass half-full scenario, a rock band that makes you move with the authority of the jangly beats of natives. This is, in my approximation, new wave electronica punk co-mingling with the Brooklyn dirty, grimy, old-fashioned sex vibe in a dark alley, not two steps from the door of a hip club. It should be safe, painless, and non-committal, but it doesn't care if you see flesh, or the dirty past underneath it. In fact, it yearns for it.