Between Attack Decay Sustain Release, Justice’s symbolically-challenging †, and Digitalism’s overlooked Idealism, this has been a good year for Daft Punk music that comes in lieu of actual new Daft Punk music. There’s more (and less) to all of these CDs than a passing resemblance to the French pop-house duo, of course, but who’s complaining? All these electro-oriented discs are sharp (or, ahem, “deep”) enough for the dance floor, yet they flaunt their pop wares unashamedly: bubblegummy hooks, short tunes, an underlying penchant for novelty.
I suppose you could say that with “I Believe,” a gospelly house track with a yearning vocal from Simon William Lord, England’s Simian Mobile Disco transcend their novelty appeal, but there’s no shame in the fact that novelties are where their hearts lie. An endearing robotic silliness abounds on tracks like “Hot Dog,” with its sing-along “Shimmy shimmy cocoa pop” chant, and “Hustler,” an uber-creepy rap about buying music at a “record store” (a place where they once sold music, strangely enough). The real winner here, however, is “It’s the Beat,” a cheerleading old-school rhyme (“it’s one for the treble/two for the bass”) that approaches the sublime when it suddenly breaks down into a delicious swirl of cathedral noise candy. If there’s a heaven for robots, one imagines it sounds a little something like this.
SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO
Attack Decay Sustain Release
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