[Review/Listen] – LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

Today’s review is a guest post by our good friend Stephen over at The Crosshair.  Check them out for some really great reviews of music, film, games and TV.

In 2001, James Murphy sang “I hear you have a compilation tape of every great song by every great group ever” on the reputation-cementing “Losing My Edge”. It seems now that that particular line was more of a manifesto within a manifesto than was originally apparent. Murphy’s mission over the past decade has been to synthesise all the greatest music from the last thirty years into one sound. On this album, that he claims to be the last LCD Soundsystem album, he comes closer than ever.

The first thing that is apparent is that vocally, Murphy has transformed almost completely from Mark E. Smith to David Bowie. What this loses in force and energy, it makes up for in melody and emotion. Neither are easy to pull off, but Murphy manages without ever feeling like he is trying too hard. It’s this quality that sets Murphy apart from his peers – the feeling that he is never struggling to catch the zeitgeist, but casually setting it as he goes and playfully mocking it as he sails past.

Opener “Dance Yrself Clean” takes the Nirvana/Pixies quiet/loud dynamic and transplants it into what is almost a disco sound. We then slide right into first single “Drunk Girls”, which is the most obvious Bowie homage, from the backing vocals to the guitar sounds, all sounding very Berlin-era Bowie. Crucially though, and perhaps this gives LCD Soundsystem too much credit , but it feels more like an intelligent artistic statement than straight plagiarism. It also includes such giggle inducing lyrics as “Drunk girls know that love is an astronaut/it comes back but it’s never the same.”

The centrepiece of the album though, is the 9 minute epic “You Wanted a Hit”. This is as close as Murphy has sounded to the aforementioned “Losing My Edge” since. It’s astonishing as it moves from icy space-synths into a stripped down guitar and drums groove over which Murphy delivers his new manifesto. It’s also incredible that after three albums and 10 years, a band can still make tracks thatsound like a manifesto. On this track and on “One Touch”, LCD Soundsytem marry the irreverence and experimentation of the first album with the craft and melody of the second.

If anyone has a claim to defining the noughties in the way that say Bowie defined the 70s, or Oasis defined the 90s, it’s LCD Soundsystem. The decade’s virtues and faults can all be found running through Murphy’s trilogy of albums. There is the mainstream postmodern cynicism, the constant recycling of the now archived and accessible past and the arch refusal to bow to commercial pressure, all the while making something close to perfect pop music.

Whether this is the last LCD Soundsystem album remains to be seen, but it will be very interesting to see what Murphy does next, whether he reclines back into his comfortable producers chair, begins something entirely anew or just quietly retires into the background. Even if that is the case, the legacy he will have left us is one as strong as anyone can lay claim to in the past ten years. If only he would leave us with one last compilation tape.

9/10

“This Is Happening” is released via DFA on May 17th in the U.K. and the 18th in the U.S.  You can listen to the whole album on their website.

Buy “This Is Happening” –  Amazon: LP (Vinyl) | CD | MP3 – Insound: CD – emusic: Register for the free trial and get 25 songs absolutely free.