Sunshine

Electric! Kill! Kill! is wonderfully polished, remarkably sharp, electronic-tinged punk rock from the Czech Republic. Sunshine shares stylistic quirks with the current crop of post-PIL / Gang Of Four dance punk acts, but it's a mistake to assume they've jumped on that bandwagon. This is a band more than ten years into their career, who've shared splits with At The Drive-In and No Knife, and who (for whatever reason) hasn't really broken the US market yet. It's funny then that while they're not necessarily following the trends of today, those trends are what might help Sunshine gain wider recognition.

Fans of Sunshine's tourmates the Faint will definitely have a good time with this. The band's sound is still pretty well rooted in rock, particularly New Order-styled new wave (or maybe later-day Primal Scream), and as such they lay down some infectious tunes while avoiding any outright "Death Disco" moments. This EP features two new tracks: the dark, frenetic "Victimisanothernameforlover" and the speedy rock song "Vampire's Dancehall." There's also two remixes here, the first being "Lower Than Low," done by Chris Corner of Sneaker Pimps / I AM X, and it leans heavily on the new wave aspects. Casey Chaos of Amen remixes the tune "What You've Got" and it's the best of the batch. The song comes off furious and sleazy, more concerned with creating a propulsive crunchy rock groove than anything else. The EP wraps up with another Sunshine original, "Thru Magnetic Fields," which previously appeared on 2001's Necromance (Gold Standard Labs released it stateside in 2003). The tune's another throwback to their influences, with a bubbling bass line underlying vocals filtered through a vocoder. It fits the overall feel of the EP so the fact that it's an older cut isn't really apparent.

Electric! Kill! Kill! Is meant to tide fans over until the band's upcoming full-length hits, but it’s a fine introduction to the band for the uninitiated. It's true that we're being pushed a lot of music cut from this cloth nowadays, but to their credit Sunshine are at least drawing their influences from an earlier, less diluted, pool than their peers.