El Presidente’s new single struts through the speakers with a swagger and funk guitar that grabs you by the spinal chord and has you actively trying not to start bopping around in public places. It’s sexy, it’s cool and it sums up this excellent new band perfectly.

If push came to shove and I had to liken El Presidente to other bands, it’d have to be some bizarre mix of Scissor Sisters, Jamiroquai and Wham!. But why bother, really, when after a couple of songs you’ll be telling your friends, who can find out for themselves. This is one of the highlights from their self-titled debut album, which was released earlier this year; the cool side of cheesy, this band has produced some classic pop tunes which are completely irresistible.

It’s rather odd, then, to find they’ve re-recorded ‘Turn This Thing Around’ for the single release and now it sounds like it’s coming through a tin bath. The new vocals are excellent if not an improvement as such, but the quality of the sound is just plain scrappy. Attempts to ask the label if this was intentional or just a poor copy met with silence, so, as far as we can tell, this is how it’s meant to sound. Not good.

A shame that such a simple yet sublime bit of music has been hacked about in the cutting room. The solution? Buy the album for the unedited dose of intoxicatingly funky pop.
(4/5)

Release Date: 06 February 2006

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