This past Friday, Ninja Sex Party released their fourth album, Under The Covers. Unlike the band’s previous three albums, the fourth strays away from their usual raunchy comedy. This album is, instead, as the title suggests, a cover album. Instead of original songs like “Everybody Shut Up (I Have an Erection),” “FYI I Wanna F Your A,” and “Cookies!,” Under The Covers features twelve classic 70s and 80s hits covered in Ninja Sex Party’s unique synth-rock style.
Like all of the two-member band’s albums, the songs covered feature Dan “Danny Sexbang” Avidan on vocals and Brian “Ninja Brian” Wecht on backing instrumentals. Their style translates extremely well to many songs on the album — namely the album’s first track, a cover of A-Ha’s “Take On Me.” The synth-rock style that the duo is known for melded with the synth-pop melodies of the original song make for an extremely well done cover — and a fun music video (see it below), featuring live instruments by Tupperware Remix Party (TWRP). Ninja Sex Party has collaborated with TWRP several times in the past, including a music video for another cover on the album, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” which takes place immediately after the bands are finished filming “Take On Me.”
Most songs on the album were adapted really well — “Your Love,” “Rock With You” — but some did not translate as well to Ninja Sex Party’s musical form. The one that sticks out the most is the cover of “Jump” by Van Halen. While heavily layered lyrics that go heavy on the echo effect may sound great in Ninja Sex Party’s originals –and even some of the covers — it doesn’t fit with “Jump” and are even a little distracting. However, the technique works well with “The Last Unicorn,” a song from the 1982 movie of the same title, which also happens to be Avidan’s all-time favorite movie.
The album concludes with a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here,” a much more toned-down song than the rest of the album. The track doesn’t feature nearly as many vocal layers or complex harmonies, making it a really nice cover of the song that somewhat breaks Ninja Sex Party’s known style.
Overall, while Under The Covers differs in content from the band’s other albums, the sound is very distinctly Ninja Sex Party, making it an overall very enjoyable and well-adapted cover album.
Under The Covers was released on Friday, March 4.
UPDATE: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Ninja Sex Party used autotuned vocals.
