When you look at the indie rock landscape in 2013, it’s almost unfathomable to think that just over a decade ago, at the turn of the millenium, there were very few, if any, dance-rock acts. There was no Hot Chip, no Cut Copy, no MGMT and LCD Soundsystem, and DFA Records were barely a blip on the radar. But there was !!!. That Thr!!!er is !!!’s fifth full length album in 13 years is both a testament to their staying power and the appeal of the genre they helped pioneer.
Looking back, 2007’s ‘Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)’, off the album Myth Takes, was the band’s pinnacle: a nine minute dance odyssey of funky bass lines, driving drum machine and punk ethos. It was all that was perfect about !!!. Conversely, Thr!!!er is long on influences and short (only 8 tracks) on highlights. It lacks the reckless abandon that defined songs like ‘Me and Guliani…’ and indeed, most of the band’s early output.
Thr!!!er wears its influences on its sleeve a lot more than past !!! albums. The opener is a dance track, but with a decidedly vintage feel – think Talking Heads fronted by James Murphy. A bouncy, off-kilter bass line and baritone vocals in the verses make this track the most interesting and fun song on the album. Unfortunately it’s not an indication of things to come. ‘One Boy/One Girl’ is a solid, disco-influenced dance track capable of sticking in your head like bubble gum to a shoe. It glitters and shimmers the way Scissor Sisters did in their prime. However, it is only the third track on the album and as the songs progress it becomes clear the magic and inventiveness Thr!!!er hinted at early is non existent.
The album’s fifth track, ‘Slyd’, is the best example of time passing !!! by. ‘Slyd’’s rhythm and drive build gradually from a single backbeat/bass line into a pulsing, hypnotic song hooked around the lyric, “Let’s go somewhere and be alone”. It tries, man does it try, but it never gets over the hump. It’s a fine example of indie dance rock, but stacked up against today’s heavyweights it lacks, for want of a better term, epicness. The grandiose size and scope of “Me and Guliani…” is there, in the DNA, but it never capitulates. It’s like when the son of a great footballer is only a decent footballer – you keep expecting that greatness to burrow its way to the surface, but it never does.
It’ll make you bob your head and it will make you tap your toes, but little about this album creates any lasting memories. Naming Thr!!!er for one of a generation’s defining moments was ambitious, and that ambition was ultimately a bridge too far. !!! reinvented the wheel once, maybe once is more than enough.
6/10
Reviewer: Nick Mackay