This is Happening is LCD Soundsystem's first album of new music since 2007's massively successful Sound of Silver, and it is also reported to be the last album they will ever release.Album opener Dance Yrself Clean starts with three minutes of quiet insecurities sung over pitter-patter rhythms, before... (Spoiler Alert, skip the next few lines if you have not heard this track) ...the beat drops, the synthesizers turn up to eleven and everything goes mental. Yes, this album is going to be great.
Lead single Drunk Girls has been described as "Drunk North American Girls Are Playing at My House", clever (yeah?) and probably fair as the track is not particularly original and by far the album's weakest moment.
The mid section of the album is rock solid: I Can Change is full of swirl-in-your-head pop, Pow Pow is dance funk at its best, while One Touch is never enough. On You Wanted a Hit, front man James Murphy sings "We don't do hits" but I don't believe that for a second. This is Happening is 100% hits.
LCD Soundsystem have never hidden their musical influences and where previous albums used late 70's post punk as a reference point This is Happening goes a step further. Blatantly borrowing from David Bowie (Heroes) and Iggy Pop (Nightclubbing) on All I Want and Somebody's Calling Me respectively.
Epic closer Home layers percussion on beat on percussion on beat, like much of the album the effect is simple and repetitive but far from boring.
If This Is Happening is to be LCD Soundsystem's final album it is a more than fitting farewell.
1 comment:
Good review!
Still got mixed feelings about this album - when it's good it's very good (Dance Yrself Clean is one of the best things they've done) but it loses its way a bit in the second half (it gets a bit too self important/self referential/self-aggrandising around 'you wanted a hit' and 'pow pow', but maybe that's the point...)
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