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Dusted Reviews
Artist: Simian Mobile Disco Album: Attack Decay Sustain Release Label: Interscope Review date: Aug. 10, 2007 |
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The 'fuck it, let's dance' attitude, has led the latest incarnation of 24-hour party people to pack dingy nightclubs across the globe wearing handkerchiefs around their necks and bike messenger caps atop their head ushering in a day-glo revivalism. Music has always been cyclical, so perhaps it's time for the mistakes of the '90s to become the hipster flavor du jour. That, at least, is what Simian Mobile Disco is hoping for by harkening back to the rave era and cutting it with vintage house, post punk lyricism and hip hop aplomb.
The title for their first full-length album, Attack Decay Sustain Release is both a subtle play on their love of vintage synthesizers and also a mantra for the lifestyle that they're trying to portray. And, truth be told, it's easy to get sucked in. Acid-addled club goers have much to rejoice in 2007 with the release of full-lengths from Simian Mobile Disco, Justice and Klaxons at the forefront of the scene. Most of these acts have had their tracks kicking around in one form or the other for the better part of a year, the vast majority of hardcore fans having already picked up import 12" versions and downloaded remixes from the blogosphere.
Realizing that many of their singles already pack dance floors, SMD seem more concerned with pleasing the home listening crowd on Attack Decay Sustain Release, paring the songs down to 2-minute pop perfection. On "I Got This Down," SMD cop hip hop bravado, laying down the line "I got this down right, I got this down tight" behind boom claps and acid-rave styling that melds thematically into that 'can't stop the beat' rhythm of "Hustler." The detached cool and lack of any real lyrical content is almost inconsequential; vocalist Char Johnson spends the entirety of the song singing about the woes of going to a record store, but not having any money. It's entirely superfluous, but all anyone really needs in a great dance song is a hook and a beat, and "Hustler" provides.
Learning the lessons of the past, these rock-band kids turned synthesizer heroes have taken lyrical posturing and braggadocio, mixed it with slick dance beats, taking it beyond the nightclubs and into the festival circuit. It's their vibrant wish to truly 'be your friend' that keeps SMD at the forefront of this nu-rave, electro-dance-funk-disco-house movement, and their aim-to-please beats eke out a more pleasurable experience than the harshness of Justice's †. If pop truly will eat itself, then SMD makes sumptuous dinner music for modern musical cannibals.
By Dustin Drase
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View all articles by Dustin Drase