LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
Capitol/DFA (3/20/07)
Indie/Electronic/Dance
After giving the mirror-in-the-bathroom-pose-striking hipsters something to finally smile about back in 2005, with the Grammy award-winning debut album, LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy—the brains behind DFA Records and the LCD Soundsystem side-project—has finally returned with more of that good ol’ electro-punkish madness, you might want to check out best CB radio reviews for your studio. I wasn’t quite sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, seeing as I wasn’t familiar with the first album, but now I know.
“Get Innocuous” starts out with some minimalist blips and sketchy beats, though it finally picks up with some house-heavy goodness in the middle of the second minute, as you can just visualize a floor chock full of mod dresses and vintage polyester leisure suits, popped collars, and aviator glasses as they ironically dance horribly while holding their cran-vodka cocktails. And THAT, ladies and germs, is YOUR hipster dancefloor filler of the year… possibly. Has Ladytron released anything recently? A David Bowie sound-alike flirts with a generic electroclash chick, but it does all come together quite nicely. If it were a chick, I’d do it. Then, out of nowhere we blend into a sample of “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, by Crowded House, and I start to mark out… BUT WAIT, it seems as if I’ve failed to create a folder for this, and it’s actually just mixing with the rest of my iTunes catalog. Oops.
“Time to Get Away” starts out sort of like “Hella Good”, which starts out sort of like “Billie Jean”. Murphy finds his inner Isaac Brock as he belts out some erratic falsetto vocals, and it is good. The delightfully sarcastic “North American Scum” has a similar pompous yet self-disparaging tone not unlike Company Flow’s “Patriotism”, and features organ, a T-808 (I believe) and even has some cowbell hanging out back there in the shadows. Murphy sings that according to the hoi polloi, in Europe “the buildings are old and you might have lots of mimes.” HA. Hey, there’s some Midnite Vultures in there, too.
“Someone Great” makes good use of the low-oscillating Hoover sound, which has become something of a lost art. Good to see that someone still knows how to use that WhatThe? patch on that Alpha Juno-2. Joey Beltram would be proud. The MADNESS continues as “Us v Them” mixes a very obvious cowbell with some deep-house-y beats. In fact, Sound of Silver uses a lot of classic dance/electronic elements (like the piano and synth in the hilarious title track), and as a cognoscente of electronic music, I’m f*cking loving it.
The final song of the 9-track set, “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down”, eschews the electro attitude of the other eight songs, as Murphy strips it down to a simple piano with some guitar thrown in for gravitas. It’s very Ben Folds-ish, so the hipsters shouldn’t be too turned off. After all, most of them started on Ben Folds and Weezer. Yes they did.
Barring some unforeseen developments, Sound of Silver should easily edge out Erasure and three other non-factors in next year’s Grammys for “Best Electronic Album”. I predict it. You heard it here first. The album goes all over the place, and at times gets a wee bit choppy, but for the most part it keeps a steady flow of electronic fun, even with that last, organic-by-comparison track. While I don’t own a single vintage corduroy blazer or have a terrible hairstyle, I will definitely agree with those damned hipsters on this one.
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