!!!
Me and Giuliani Down By the School Yard
Touch and Go Records
If you’re already familiar with the brilliant, expansive OUT HUD project, then you might immediately notice the slowly striking similarities between !!! and the former. For the uninitiated, though, the Sacramento-based !!!’s 2-song release is sleazy disco post-punk that carries the capabilities of stretching your synapses like rubber band parlor tricks.
With vocals and less-synthetic/more-organic sound, this wound-up nine-piece throws everything and the kitchen sink into an aural melting pot that steers from beat-driven funk and caterwauling rhythms of their post-punk brethren, including the Rapture and Radio 4. Rather than rely on scraping punk nuances, !!! prefers to enhance the party with vocal harmonies, dancefloor phrasing and straight-beat buildups. Both songs, which clock in with at least eight minutes of restrained cacophony, are house anthems for the indie kid who hates dance music. Though the band gets mired in their own repetitive indulgences, especially on the B-side “Intensifieder,” the piling electric layers of the song distract from such minute flaws. Though the hype bug hasn’t quite bitten this talented troupe like their East Coast comrades, its understated, underrated songcraft will still keep them a step ahead of the spotlight.
