Armed with larger-than-life names (Dick Valentine, The Colonel), fake moustaches and thrift-store suits, Electric Six beg the question “Are they for real?”As it turns out, they are.

Electric Six can negotiate that fine, balancing act between over-the-top presentation and actually making music worth listening to.

Electric Six had a big year in 2002. With the single “Danger! High Voltage,” Electric Six helped usher in a new wave of music: a throwback to disco, punk, rock and everything in between.

Never taking themselves too seriously (or seriously at all), the Six produced catchy songs with dumb lyrics (“I wanna spend all your money, at the gay bar”) and even dumber titles (“Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother)”).

Just five months after releasing “Fire,” the sextet was dropped from XL Recordings.

Undeterred, Electric Six recorded its sophomore effort, “Se¤or Smoke,” and released it in February 2005 through Warner Music UK before being dropped again in October 2005.

Finally, one year after “Smoke’s” initial release in the UK and Australia, the Six saw their labor of love released on American shores in February 2006 by Metropolis Records.

Smoke” proves to be a more consistent album than its predecessor.

The band has taken all the ideas from “Fire,” boiled them down to a focused formula and improved on their first album: the synthesizers groove on “Dance-A-Thon 2005,” the guitars scream on “Be My Dark Angel” and Dick Valentine’s falsetto reaches higher than before.

The dumb lyrics make a return as well:

“You know I need to make you understand now, I’m a man not a disco ball,” screams Valentine in “Future is in the Future.”

Electric Six takes the stage March 3 at the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas.

-John-Laurent Tronche