The one thing musicians can’t help but have in common is their mortality, whether in life or in art. Some fads simply die, leaving bands — such as Technotronic of “Pump Up the Jam” fame— destitute and without a genre.
In other cases, band members die, changing the course of a band forever, such as when The Allman Brothers Band lost guitar god Duane Allman to a motorcycle accident or Queen lost frontman Freddie Mercury to AIDS.
For !!!, commonly pronounced “chk chk chk,” the death of drummer Jerry Fuchs has helped spur a new record out of a band that generally takes long breaks between releases. In many ways, !!!’s newest album, Strange Weather, Isn’t It?, is the band’s most refined, concise record to date, without ever straying from the band’s primal instinct — elliptical jams.
The jams are elliptical in a couple ways: First, most tracks could be played in an endless round and audiences wouldn’t realize it; second, these tracks work perfectly as exercise material, whether on a treadmill or an elliptical trainer.
Take the sinister thump of closing track “The Hammer,” a song lead by a thick, commanding bass line and jittering melodies. The song’s ominous feel is countered by lead singer Nic Offer’s repetitious, exercise-ready lyric “Don’t stop, come on, don’t stop.”
On many tracks, Offer uses the same nasal delivery as James Murphy during the self-titled album-era of LCD Soundsystem. However, though these two acts go well together, !!!’s sound sometimes mirrors another DFA Records group, Hercules and Love Affair.
“The Most Certain Sure” is a definitive statement of rolling space-disco ripped straight from the Hercules and Love Affair catalog. The song is built around a catchy chorus backed by mellow strings and an insistent use of bouncing delay and reverberation on the vocals and instruments.
The whomp-whomp of the bass on “Jump Back” creates the driving force behind a mellow disco number that pops on every second and fourth beat. Offer comes off even more subdued than ever, sitting below the surface of the song and whispering his ultimately unimportant lyrics.
As with all !!! efforts, the bass beat never stops counting out its repetitive four-on-the-floor structures, lending the tracks well to instances of body movement.
Though they are cast under the dance-punk banner, !!! is really about a combination of funk, techno and house, a fact that fully comes into fruition over the course of the album.
“Wannagain Wannagain” is equal parts psychedelic rock, funk and techno, with a healthy dose of early-1990s R&B. Still, even with all the cross-genre splicing, the band never sounds muddled or overly referential.
Actually, quite the opposite: !!! has become a band of precise musical elements and choices.
The structure of the band itself was whittled down to acute, necessary components following Fuch’s death. Whereas earlier recordings featured a veritable army of players, this record only has five in total.
But even with a distinct musical direction and a small cast, the album feels mission-less. Given that !!! wants its audience to dance, there seems to be no other point to the music.
Therefore, it’s hard to give Strange Weather, Isn’t It? any more props than those a listener might give to standard, run-of-the-mill dance music — !!!’s music doesn’t have the same social or personal elements that the music of a dance band like LCD Soundsystem has.
Instead, !!!’s music is only about finding a groove, such as on “Steady as the Sidewalk Cracks,” which flits among the styles of Michael Jackson, Gorillaz and Talking Heads, effectively becoming the vigorous highlight of the album.
In reality, the death of Fuchs has perhaps reinvigorated !!! to make music more palatable to a wider audience. The songs are shorter and more to the point than anything the band has previously released.
Fuchs’ death hasn’t ruined the band, just changed them in some unexpected ways. Strange Weather, Isn’t It? is a great record for the indie-dance crowd — a smooth, oval-shaped funk record that’s sure to please.
At least until the weather changes.
RATING: 3 stars out of 5
zberman@umd.edu
