Dave's Totally Boss Musings

!!!- Louden Up Now (Warp, 2004)
DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE

OK, maybe I was wrong. I’ve been knocking the whole “dancepunk” trend for a few months now, mostly due to a less than fantastic experience with The Rapture—which, unfortunately, I’m sure has more than a little to do with Pitchfork’s album-of-the-year foolishness. And what meaning is there in such a claim, really? But O My Brothers (and Sisters), I have finally seen the light. !!!, pronounced “chk chk chk,” or “shuh shuh shuh,” or “[tongue thing] [tongue thing] [tongue thing],” have released their sophomore album, Louden Up Now, to hyped expectations a few notches above staggering. To say they’ve lived up to the hype is almost irrelevant. What the group has done is provided an album’s worth of unshakable foundation to a trend, almost single-handedly elevating a type of music that until now smacked of an extended fad to full-fledged genre status. I will officially stop referring to dancepunk in quotation marks. There, I’ve done it already.

!!! don’t waste any time getting started. Incredible opener “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Gets Krazee” seems to begin right in the middle of a heated street-funk jam, vaguely resembling an updated version of the opening track from On the Corner. !!! channel equal parts Remain in Light -era Talking Heads, Happy Mondays, and Andre 3000’s sound effects library to churn out a punishing six-minute groove. The lyrics are an amalgam of punk ambivalence (“stare at the sky”) and testosterone-injected dancehall bravado (“you can learn a lot from taking your chances/you can learn a lot from taking your pants off”).

Nic Offer’s vocals absolutely pulsate with raw exuberant energy. When he tells the President of the United States of America to suck his fucking dick (on the darkly intense “Dear Can”), you better believe Dubya is going to do it—fast, hard and to the beat. Offer's range is also quite versatile, as his Prince impression proves on the politically-titled but groove-fueled “Pardon My Freedom.” !!!’s political slant (what’s left of funky?) becomes more evident on subsequent tracks. On the near-epic “Hello? Is This Thing On?” Offer, half-kidding at most, suggests that no one is listening to the problems of the younger generation, and that the solution, of course, is to dance.

The two-part “Shitscheisemerde” redefines the boundaries of how much fun can be had with the word “shit” (and, for European audiences, “scheise” and “merde”), along with serving as an excellent bit of rock star chest-beating/wishful thinking (“catch me singing in twenty years in some local county fair”). The song even allows a quick twofer political dis, criticizing both Bush and Tony Blair for acting in self-interest rather than in the interest of their respective constituencies. “Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard” is just as kick-ass here as it was in single format—that the track fits so naturally into its surroundings is a testament to the album’s uniform strength.

And for anyone who still thinks !!! needs to diversify, the band bewilders and amazes with “Space Island,” a brief but stunning deconstruction of the band’s already challenging punk-funk. What sounds a bit like late night Latin radio programming emitting from a creepy cabbie's speakers trips and stumbles for a few minutes before wheezing to a close. Meanwhile Offer coos with as much treacle as he can muster, which isn’t much, “you’ve got the morning/you’ve got the stars/ what else is there to have?” Then, in true faux gushy loverman fashion, he puts a metaphorical shushing finger to our lips, whispering, “Wait...don’t answer that.” Of course, there is more to have—a final instrumental remix of “Shitscheisemerde” constructed from a jarring breakbeat and gloomy post-punk guitar stabs. The track, like every track on the album, practically begs everyone listening to dance. So do it! Do it now! DANCE DANCE DANCE!

Dance as though the world depends on it! Because, according to !!!, it does. It really, really does.