Disco punk has surprisingly outlived what should have been a very limited shelf life.
Considering Death From Above 1979 couldn't last, all LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy wants to do is stop making music, and that it's been four years since The Rapture released an album, the genre does seem to be on its last legs.
So it's surprising that a band like !!! are still going, especially considering their drummer's incredibly unfortunate death (he fell down an elevator shaft) earlier this year. You've got to wonder if the audience is still there for this kind of thing. It was all the rage six years ago… but that was six years ago.
What's even more surprising is that Strange Weather, Isn't It? is, well… good. It isn't great, since most of it still sounds like Primal Scream (particularly first single "AM/FM"), but it's not terrible.
Tracks like "The Most Certain Sure" will definitely make you want to dance, but what's entirely obvious is they lack the immediacy that songs like "Hello? Is This Thing On?," "Shit Scheisse Merde" and "Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)" from 2004's Louden Up Now.
Sure, nothing was really "new" about that album, but it at least sounded like it had some energy, and there was an urgency to it that marked the disco punk of that time.
But is it merely enough for a band in a genre as stale as dance punk to just make a "good" album? In a world where Franz Ferdinand are only able to sell out mid-size venues and anthem-bators like Arcade Fire rule the day, I'd say no. And that pretty much makes Strange Weather, Isn't It? irrelevant.
Get it from 
- Gowan Reissuing Strange Animal In March
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- Pumping: Kula Shaker — Strange Folk
- David Usher: Strange Bird In A Strange Land
- Incredibly Strange Wrestling Warps Tour
