I've just realised I haven't talked about the recent SMD and Justice albums properly. I'll get the semantics out of the way first: both are excellent.


First under the microscope is †. The lead singles DANCE and Waters Of Nazareth (as well as We Are Your Friends, of course - though it's missing from the album) were very good, and stylistically this LP is largely in keeping with that track record. Up there with them is NewJack, a sliced-up mangled vocal disco bleep-out track reminiscent of Daft Punk circa Harder Better Faster Stronger. There's also Phantom II, a re-imagining of the DANCE B-side with a longer chord progression and strings.

Unfortunately the album loses momentum in the middle a little, with Valentine, TTTHHHEEE PPPAAARRRTTTYYY and DVNO. The first of these is slightly better and, while none are bad songs, they don't have the club-pumping atmosphere as the rest of the LP.

Stellar as DANCE, 'Nazareth, NewJack and Phantom II are, they are not the best tracks on the album. That crown has to go to Phantom (which we saw before on DANCE) and Stress. The former is utterly fantastic from the opening with a synth that sounds like a vocalised glockenspiel through the über-distorted breakdown to the bleepy fade-out. If you wanted one track that exemplified Justice's work to date, it would be this.
Better still, though, is the aptly-named Stress. It's a frankly terrifying affair with a shrieking lead violin and four (count 'em) different siren sounds. Any song with sirens is good (look at Atlantis To Interzone or Heavyweight Champion Of The World) and this is no exception. I dare you to blast it at 11.


Any song with sirens is good, and Tits & Acid by SMD has a pair. It's a totally insane track with an exceedingly pitch-shifted lead loop, chordal stabs and a percussive vocal sample ("is he saying 'bass'?"). I challenge you not to bop a little when it charges through your speakers like an underground club rhinoceros. This is a re-recording (as are all the album tracks which were previously available) and while it's generally better there are one or two elements I've missed. I suggest you track down the other version of all the tracks on the Hype Machine for comparison.

The other singles on the album are It's The Beat, Hustler, I Believe and Hot Dog. They've all been revamped for an edgier indie-rock feel, not entirely unlike early Kasabian. Standing out among these already-great tracks is I Believe. The re-recording has given it a new lease of life; it's a lot less dancey now. The original seemed to put the (very good) bassline and drums first; now the melodic vocal and synth are emphasised. It's very much in the indie realm of dance crossover, sounding like a proper new-rave tune.

It's a great shame tracks Wooden and Scott, tracks 8 and 10 (out of 10) respectively are gratuitous bleep-out sessions. We forgave them for the end of the Hustler single because it simply emphasised the song's inherent style, but there's no excuse for randomised arpeggios and boring pads on their own. Wooden suffers less landing just this side of listenability but I suggest you take the CD out a track early and forget about Scott.

On a much brighter note, opener Sleep Deprivation is an absolute stomper. I'd say it was the highlight of the album, and perfectly illustrates SMD's electro ethos. The eight-bar chord progression sits at the heart of the track, and the pulse is provided by a straightforward buzzy bassline. It culminates in a blastable chordal synth towards the very end, accentuated by keyboard stabs on the beat. I can't get enough of it, and to be honest I can't get enough SMD. Attack Decay Sustain Release is the unmissable album of this quarter (Think Before You Speak was last quarter, right?).


Epilogue: I forgot to mention the high production values on each album. Neither fall into the dance music trap of simply pumping bass and lower mids to mask the lack of interesting music further up and the result is easy-to-listen-to electronic indie. It doesn't get any better.
Oh, and the White Stripes album, Icky Thump, is good. I have been too busy to sit down with it properly but I promise I will over the next fortnight or so.