Electric Callboy are a band who have ridden the virality of their “TEKKNO TRAIN” for some time now, having turned into a global phenomenon with their brand of electronicore. The addition of former Sum 41 drummer Frank Zummo to their ranks has lent to some pop-punk stylings in recent times, and as such, their most recent album TANZNEID is a veritable buffet of beats and bangers. Even when the jungs are going fully tongue-in-cheek, it is accomplished, living up to an ethos of taking what one does seriously without taking oneself seriously.
While we've already gotten several tastes of the menu in a staggering seven singles out of ten new songs (eight if you count the BABYMETAL team-up “RATATATA,” which the latter also released on their METAL FORTH album last summer), the album does truly have something for everyone, but that isn't always the best approach. Everything on offer feels firmly within the Callboy wheelhouse, but there is an overegging the proverbial pudding that does occur on more than one occasion. TANZNEID is a good album, let it be known, but the lack of focus does show, and for a band whose been around the block for over a decade and a name change, things should perhaps be a little more reined in by now.
Not every moment of experimentation falls short, however. “Revery” is a track that feels like it isn't a Callboy song at its core, but it works so well that it almost doesn't matter. The pseudo-symphonic grandeur and the spookier themes on display are a great attempt at doing something in a horror vein, and that was released months before the tongue-in-cheek cannibalistic cancion that is “The Way You Are.” It is as batshit as the band has ever been, and for a band that's covered “Everytime We Touch” and had a music video with bowl cuts abound, that's no small accomplishment.
The pop-punk influence is in full effect thanks to a cover of Sum 41’s “Still Waiting,” the original version of which is plenty metal enough with its thrash-leaning main riff. The Offspring feature on “Let The Good Times Roll,” which frankly feels like an Offspring song with some synths thrown over top. It feels like something for the more hardcore fans of either band, but as an album cut, it's fine at best. It is fascinating, being that we are a nu metal-focused publication, to see the shift to the Nineties and early Aughts as the cultural touchstone du jour, and pop-punk is firmly in that time frame, so it's nice to see a crossing of the streams as such.
Since most of the album's ten core tracks - that is, not including the four remixes - have been released ahead of the LP's street date, the two remaining songs “Heartclub” and “Savior” are the de facto B-sides, and this is where the plot is lost. The former is more firmly in the metal end of things, save for the chorus, while the latter is a hair-metal inspired track that nods to the Eighties. With the jumping around from the modern era to the Nineties and early Aughts and now the decade preceding, this is tonal whiplash in the worst way. It feels like either of these songs could have been left off the album, and for that matter, the remixes are a mixed bag, with the Sullivan King remix of “Revery” missing the spirit of the original in a way that feels inexcusable.
Truth be told, if one has been following the album cycle, which has spanned for several years at this point, most of the album is already out there and has been. The surprises are nonexistent, and the would-be hidden gems aren't hidden. It's not that this isn't a good album, as what works, works well, but having eighty percent of the core album already out before its release makes one wonder why release an album at all, especially one with as much hype and buzz as TANZNEID has generated since the title track's Halloween 2025 release.
TANZNEID is available now via Century Media Records.
