Dance-punk mini-roundup
I don't have the resources, the time, or the attention span to conduct a comprehensive dance-punk genre review, but I did find a few bands that I like; and that's what this blog is all about anyway, as it says right up there at the top, "Songs I Like." One thing about these dance-punk bands, they pretty much suck at naming themselves. Case in point: Does It Offend You, Yeah? That's the name of the band. It's a Ricky Gervais line from The Office. "No thought went into it whatsoever," they say, and it shows. According to Wikipedia they are a "British electro-rock band from Reading," "electro-rock" meaning "dance-punk with a synthesizer." Getting beyond their name, their debut album, You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into, has several noteworthy songs on it, my favorite being track two, ""With a Heavy Heart (I Regret to Inform You)"--
What's a worse band name than Does It Offend You, Yeah? How about "!!!", the band with nothing but punctuation for a name? Try Googling that--you'll get nothing! Nice strategy for getting the word out! Their MySpace page includes some pronunciation tips: "! ! ! is pronounced as any sound repeated three times. Common interpretations are chkchkchk, powpowpow, uhuhuh: unlimited possibilities." Indeed, they've even taken to writing the band name as "!!! (Chk Chk Chk)"-- if you have to explain it right up front, that's a good indicator of a bad name. But I can't fault their music. They've been at this dance-punk thing for years now (like fellow Brooklynites Radio 4, seen here earlier), and they're pretty darn good at it. Once again I've settled on track two of their latest album, Myth Takes (groan), as my favorite (though "Heart of Hearts" is more immediately gratifying, but it's way more "dance" than "punk"):
Rounding out today's trio are the tolerably-named Infadels, from London. Their first album, We Are Not The Infadels, is two years old now, but it's new to me. In keeping with the inadvertent theme of this post, the standout is track two, "Can't Get Enough," which has the wickedest beat that any of these bands have recorded. It could just be that I'm a sucker for a driving synth line, but I don't see how anyone can resist this one:
All three of these bands have stellar reputations for their live shows, and I could definitely get into spending a couple sweaty hours bopping around to their music, if any of them by some miracle actually come play in Ithaca. Eh, fat chance. I'd drive to Syracuse to see them, though. Come on, guys, how about it? Please?
