!!!

Strange Weather, Isn't It?

(Warp)

What’s the feeling you have when you’re driving through a big city on a Friday night with all of the lights and bustling around you? It’s the unknown, it’s the shade that allows everything to dance to its own private groove. It takes an awareness of the night to capture that feeling adequately. !!!—most commonly pronounced “chk chk chk”—knows the night vibe. On their 2006 album, Myth Takes, the five-piece from Sacramento, California tapped the vibe with pulsating, pop-oriented electronica tunes, with a splash of acid house, like on “Heart of Hearts.” On their latest album, Strange Weather, Isn’t It?, the band has tweaked their sound, relying more on organic guitar rhythms and fatter, more obvious bass lines to complement their electronic soundwave wash. The result is something like a modern-day electronic disco.

Ironically, Strange Weather isn’t as strange as the band’s previous works. It’s more grounded and there are fewer interruptions to the dance flow. It starts out strong with a mellow yet persistently trancey track called “AM/FM,” and moves smoothly into the twangy, guitar-clacking disco hit “The Most Certain Sure.” But for every moment of 1970s disco flare there is a psychedelic, spaced-out breakdown to balance it out (hear “Even Judas Gave Jesus a Kiss”). The verses on Strange Weather get your body moving and the band seamlessly transitions their funky dance-floor disco into hooks that will even have you repeating the lyrics, which is surprising because the focus of the album is clearly on the rhythm.

Although some tracks seem lacking, like “Hollow,” with its only redeemable trait being the soulful female vocal in the refrain, songs like “Jamie, My Intentions Are Bass,” the centerpiece of the record, make up for it with ultra catchy tongue-in-cheek lyrics and an energizing build to a pay off climax. Although their name (if you can call “!!!” a name…) isn’t very accessible, Strange Weather, Isn’t It? is the band’s most accessible album to date.

—cory perla