Ever since they changed their name, Electric Callboy have been an inescapable force in metal: whether you wanted to or not, you heard ‘We Got the Moves’ when it dropped back in 2021. The band’s signature blend of European dance music and modern metalcore— dubbed ‘electronicore’— is only growing more popular over time, as the band have just been announced to headline such prestigious festivals as Wacken and Bloodstock. New record ‘TANZNEID’ has us questioning why.

‘TANZNEID’ is home to ten original tracks, though a whopping eight of them were singles: that alone should clue you in as to the band’s priorities. Electric Callboy may be a metalcore act, but they’ve clearly worked tirelessly to make these songs as digestible as humanly possible— despite the booming djent guitars that eat up the mix on every track, Ratajczak and company are most definitely writing dance music first and foremost. The group certainly know their way around a catchy chorus, and when all is said and done, it’s Nico Sallach’s squeaky clean vocals that you’ll remember before anything else. The runaway success of BABYMETAL collab ‘RATATA’ didn’t come by accident, not with a hook so clearly engineered to get stuck in your head. The standout melodies on ‘Elevator Operator’ and ‘Revery’ are the choice highlights from a project with accessibility firmly in mind.

Having said all of that, we’re still not convinced that Electric Callboy have actually given contemporary dance music more than a passing glance, and that is one of two glaring flaws dragging ‘TANZNEID’ down: as far as songwriting is concerned, the record just doesn’t have much to offer. It would be one thing if the group were combining the dominating guitar work of Meshuggah with the adrenaline-fuelled madness of Justice or Daft Punk, but that’s not what Ratajczak and company are aiming for— their electronic roots don’t lie in DJ sets and nightclubs, but at your local primary school’s disco. ‘Let The Good Times Roll’ is the most egregious example of a track that sounds like it should be advertising a Butlin’s holiday, but no cut really manages to escape that insipid, corporate feeling. On ‘TANZNEID,’ every lyric is an empty platitude, just begging for you not to listen in too closely.

Now it would of course be fair to say that Electric Callboy don’t need to be making the most thrilling dance music out there, because that’s not the market they’re competing in: if their festival bookings are to be believed, they’re a metal band, and it’s that combination of crushing guitars with joyful melodies that’s earned the crew their keep these last few years. In fairness, it’s an interesting combination of genres, and one we hope to see more bands explore in future— in the case of ‘TANZNEID,’ you really have to question what the band’s metalcore influences are actually bringing to the table. Electric Callboy rush through the breakdowns on the title track and on ‘Heartclub’ as if they themselves are embarrassed to have included them: once again, appealing to a wide audience was clearly the name of the game here, which might explain why every guitar sounds so flat and empty across the entire project.

‘The Way You Are’ is the perfect microcosm to showcase every flaw tearing this album apart, and it just so happens to be record’s weakest offering to boot. The track is an absolute gimmick through-and-through, smashing the sentimental crooning of Backstreet Boys together with the towering symphonic deathcore of Lorna Shore: it’s disheartening to see Electric Callboy devoting time on a fairly brief album to a joke like this, but even more than that, ‘The Way You Are’ exposes the rocky foundation the group are building from. Both halves of the cut, whether we’re talking about Sallach’s flowery choruses or Ratajczak’s ferocious snarls, are clearly drenched in irony, but truth be told, the environmentally-conscious ‘The Savior’ and the happy-go-lucky ‘Hypercharged’ are no less ridiculous than this piece of parody music. That really is quite damning.

After two entire years of build-up and single releases, Electric Callboy’s newest album is here, and it’s a meagre offering: the record is light on content not only because we’ve heard most of its tracks before, not only because it has four remixes slapped onto the end, not only because one of the singles is a Sum 41 cover, but because the entire identity of this project feels like one big gimmick. Neither the metalcore nor the dance music the band are making hold up to the competition, and the combination of the two just isn’t that cute— why, again, are this band headlining Wacken Open Air?