!!! - Myth Takes

Download: !!! - Must Be the Moon
Download: !!! - Myth Takes
Download: !!! - Infinifold

Grade: B+

It's hard to keep up with new music. The blogosphere (my favorite buzzword, btw) just swells with new bands, new songs, new MUST HAVE or YOU=LOSER albums. You try amd keep up, but at the end of the day, you realize you want to have friends and also receive natural sunlight, and you start to overlook stuff. Case in point: the new !!! album. I was under the impression that this album still hadn't been released yet, but according to the world wide web, Myth Takes came out on March 5, 2007. Go figure.

But it's a good thing that this album is already available to the public, because this album is good! Like really good. The last !!! album, Louden Up Now, had these big, sprawling disco-punk jams that were spread out over 6, 7 or 8 minutes. I always thought that was awesome, because my friend Joe and I had a radio show at the time (Stayin' Alive in the Land of Tears and Darkness, or S.A.L.T.D. radio), and everytime we ran out of stuff to say or talk about we'd throw on one of that album's epic tracks and go grab a cup of coffee, or take a piss, or something.

This new album, Myth Takes, finds !!! focusing their sound. Sure, they cut loose on a few tracks, like the excellent "Bend Over Beethoven," but mostly they stick to writing really smart dance-punk. Short, concise and sexy, the best tracks on Myth Takes prove that !!! are spaz rockers with a purpose. They even get all soft and sentimental on "Infinifold," which may be the album's best track. Built off a few gentle piano chords, distortion and little electronic pings and swells color the background while Nick Offer laments the fact that "nothing's gonna change nothing." It's a bonafide ballad, and, suprisingly, !!! pull it off without sounding ironic or cloying.

But "Infinifold" is unique. The better disco-punk numbers that make up the rest of the record are pithy, incisive slabs of evil dance music, like the title track, "Myth Takes," or even the lengthy "Must Be the Moon." With songs like this, it finally seems like !!!'s live prowess is beginning to catch up to them in the studio.

(Pete Farrell)