LCD Soundsystem... punk-dance, yes, but mellowing...

James Murphy is a punk-dance trickster, deftly shuffling musical styles and references in a quick fingered blur. He's famously iconoclastic in person, but on record he's also resentful and acerbic, vengeful and sarcastic, yet somehow finds a way to make a perfectly likeable brand of dark pop.

This Is Happening is his third album under the LCD... moniker and it's the sound of a talented middle-aged man facing up to his flaws, but still not shy of throwing a few punches when he sees fit. Where earlier albums ranted and raved (often against the corporate music industry), here he's coming to a reluctant detente, as on "Pow Pow" - ".. from this position.. oh just relax, from this position... I make some stand, I make my peace with the man..."

This is Happening is a brief nine tracks long, but each track gives ample space for the groove to ferment and rise. Key reference points, as on previous albums, are Bowie, Eno and Reed, 80's art rock, dirty New York disco, and 90's acid house. And yet this album is calmer, the synth's are less abrasively toxic. Seen live, LCDS are essentially a regular indie band playing dance music, but on record he writes and plays nearly everything himself, in true enfant-terrible fashion. Typically, Murphy will set up a groove - be it house, funk, disco, rock - run a vocal riff over the top, and let it build toward some kind of climax. His David Byrne-esque, shouty vocals are not particularly strong, but they are distinctive and simple in a way that lends itself to catchiness.

"Dance Yrself Clean" starts out as a simple disco groove, before a super-fat, electro-house synth comes wading in over the top, squashing everything in it's wake. "Drunk Girls" is a bitingly sarcastic party song with hand claps and a mocking "Oh oh I be-lieeeve.." chorus. At the mid-point "I Can Change" is about domestic battles and a man clinging on to love. This is followed by the particularly 80's sounding "You Wanted a Hit", where he returns to beating on the music industry. Highlight is the off-message and sentimential album closer "Home", where Murphy briefly sheds the self-loathing and bile and allows himself a little hope.

This is Happening is an engaging and enjoyable album, but it lacks the edgy progressive-ness of earlier work. This is a little disappointing considering the promise engendered by the debut, and especially so when compared to the freshness coming from contempories such as, say, Crystal Castles. The LCDS work is released on Murphy's own DFA label, which is a current hotbed of the more transgressive and genre-breaking, leftfield end of dance (The Rapture, The Juan McClean, Hot Chip..), and so the singles generally come with a variety of leftfield club orientated remixes which can be more liberally inventive than the original format.

Links:
Drunk Girls - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdRaf3-OEh4