Eagles Of Death Metal

Death By Sexy

[4/5] That’s the nice thing about high-school girls, man: As Eagles Of Death Metal frontman Jesse “The Devil” Hughes gets older, they stay the same age. Which is why, presumably, the impressively ’stached singer/guitarist sends a shout-out to barely legal honeys everywhere on the torrid falsetto-grind of Death By Sexy’s second track, “I Gotta Feeling (Just Nineteen).” The best part is that the hits just keep on coming: Hughes, Eagles drummer Baby Duck (a.k.a. Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age) and an array of special guests–like Jack Black, Dave Grohl and Mark Lanegan–swing their hips to the Rolling Stones jangle of “I Like To Move In The Night,” try to keep their raging boners in check on the hyperkinetic power-stomp of “I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)” and then pop Viagra, Phil Spector-style, on the honky-tonk bubblegum anthem “Cherry Cola.” And those are just the first four songs. Elsewhere, Hughes and his crew blow through the kind of drums ’n’ acoustic booty jams that would make R.L. Burnside do ankle-grabs in his grave. Like the rest of the album, “Keep Your Head Up,” “Shasta Beast” and (of course) “Chase The Devil”–which sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis cock-blocking Robert Johnson at the Crossroads–all have the same subtext: From nose to toes, Eagles Of Death Metal know where it goes.
(DOWNTOWN) J. Bennett



ROCKS LIKE: R.L. Burnside’s Bad Luck City • The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed • The White Stripes’ Elephant