LCD soundsystem
This Is Happening
(DFA)- TNT album review
Like the often brilliant but ultimately patchy Sound Of Silver, LCD Soundsystem’s This Is Happening gets off to
a confused start.
From low-key beginnings, opening track Dance Yrself Clean spirals on for nine thrilling minutes and never once loses its thread. By contrast, the skimpy new wave rock of Drunk Girls which follows goes precisely nowhere and takes its time doing so.
Happily, leaving aside the David Bowie-aping All I Want, the remainder of the album
is closer in quality to its outstanding opener than
its dismal second track.
As ever, James Murphy’s more interested in reaching the dance floor mavens than the radio programmers: witness the single-chord, floor-filling pulse of One Touch,
or the laconic You Wanted
A Hit. But there’s pop here,
too, never better than on
the touching I Can Change.
Perhaps concerned about losing his edge, Murphy intimated last year that
the third LCD Soundsystem record would be the last. If
so, he’s gone out with a bang.
4/5
Review: Will Fulford-Jones
