New record from EoDM is all fun and no surprises

OK, here's the deal: this album will not convert anyone to EoDM, and it's not supposed to. If you like what Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme do, you'll enjoy their new offering. If you don't, Zipper won't change your mind regarding their shtick.

The fun of EoDM has always been akin to a Marvel movie: you already know how it ends so the point is the journey, not the destination. The egotistical strut of the guitars, the unironically excited drumming, those fucking handclaps - it's all intact here. There's little in the way of songwriting progression from any of their three previous LPs and that's perfectly fine because what EoDM do, they do well.

Zipper Down offers rockabilly ("The Deuce" and "I Love You All The Time"), fuzzed out stompers ("Skin-Tight Boogie") and power pop ("Got A Woman"), and each is done with the tongue-sticking-through-cheek dance-rock absurdity you've come to expect from this duo. Hell, there's even a cover of Duran Duran's "Save A Prayer" that works surprisingly well as a garage rocker.

Early in the record, Hughes sings about the cool kids are going to a show at Silverlake and that those from the titular place "don't give a damn." Whether any of that is true doesn't really matter. Hughes sells it (and everything else on Zipper Down) in spite of relevance or degree of truth because he knows what any fan of Eagles of Death Metal knows: they're here to entertain you and that's pretty much it.