July 1, 2004

!!! : Louden Up Now

Righteous funkateers attempt to shake up the new world order...

7 / 10 You've got to admire !!! flagrant disregard for the niceties of grammar, but really, why did they have to choose the punctuation mark of the seasoned cretin? Three exclamation points: really, if it was an email, you'd have already clicked 'delete', lest you were to clap eyes on the hilarious picture of a monkey wearing a fez that Dave from accounts downloaded in his lunch hour.

Weird, because everyone's got !!! - pronounced chk-chk-chk - pegged as the trendiest of New York hipsters, loose-hipped kinfolk of tousled dance hobbits Rapture and punk-funk Svengali LCD Soundsystem. !!! are ex-punk-rockers, now proudly advocating a new pro-boogie manifesto, and as with everything touched by the Midas hand of the DFA, the music is irresistible - a hip-shaking synthesis of Kool & The Gang's boggle-eyed disco inferno and the tumultuous discord of Sonic Youth, conga-lines of saxophone, trumpet and tin-pot percussion snaking in and out of the mix.

Whereas their close relatives raid post-punk's cupboard but leave their dog-eared collection of Marxist pamphlets untouched, !!! are a little bit more political than your typical feet-botherers. While not a bad thing in itself - witness the astute Marxist agit-prop of '80s post-punk heroes Gang Of Four - here, it's about as eloquent as George W Bush with a jammed autocue. 'Pardon My Freedom'? Somewhere, a Michael Moore book is missing its title. But you haven't heard the lyrics yet: "What did George Bush say/When he met Tony Blair?" barks Nic Offer, "Shit/Scheisse/Merde". Great: modern post-punk finally gets a handle on the leftist politics of its forefathers. Such a shame the role model had to be bloody Chumbawamba.

Still, for their righteous dance moves alone, these guys are for keeps. Too few of the new
punk guard remember old New York's dance-or-death manifesto but !!! are there shaking their maracas on the front line. In fact, NME might start a little campaign of our own. What do we want? More saxophone! When do we want it? Now!

Louis Pattison