Shitdisco Parties Like It’s 2008
The Emanator evokes such carefree times
Shitdisco
The Emanator
Released on Nov 04, 2008
Celebratory as hell and just as frenetic,
Shitdisco sounds like a house party on repeat, sweat-drenched guests
in perpetual motion and speed-driven rhythms that leave you breathless
as a plosive. Loose-fitting lyrics and tightly wound tracks translate
the intensity of their live act to their most recent recorded work.
With last year’s US-only release of The Emanator, Shitdisco
returned stateside their soundtrack to the dance-punk scene.
The Emanator opens with quick
percussive impact and high-energy irony, apparent from the sloppy, self-satirizing
refrain in “Reactor Party” (“We’ve never heard of the Ministry
of Sound, we’ve never heard of the Underground”) to the parodic,
high-pitch chorus in “Disco Blood”. Shitdisco sets, as the
status quo, a fever pitch and sticks to the house-rocking, pit-moshing,
full-body movement-inducing drumbeat. Songs seem to repeat themselves
as each fast paced track pours into the next, but the dance craze adds
continuity throughout the album and keeps the energy up.
“Teenage House Fire” echoes an electrified Beach Boys with tubular guitar licks and inciting tempo. “Lover of Others” is interwoven with hoots and hollers, other ejaculations, and features the most out-of-place and, perhaps for that reason, amazing (albeit all but protracted) piano solo. In its disregard for any engagement with real politics, The Emanator was evidently released before multinational capitalism had a heart attack and sent the world reeling. As it were, an apparently premonitory tinge of the world awaiting emerges at more low-key moments.
If the album starts with spring break or the party scene, it also retracts into a darker register more akin to August, the sobering end-of-summer anticipation of autumn (or worse yet, winter). The album’s title track fuses melodic emersions with emphatic lyrical effects unlike the others, and the haunting lullaby-like “Dream of Infinity” adds a sobering arch to the album’s midpoint. Most appropriately, “Fear of the Future” starts with real sick synth and disorienting auditory spells, before devolving into a hallucinatory show of sound effects.
During a time when everyone could
use a little uplifting, Shitdisco’s oblivious optimism comes across
as laidback and necessary. While not overly ambitious, The
Emanator emerges as a most excellent all-around.
High Point
The beginning-to-end playability of the album in its entirety.
Low Point
One or two tracks sound awfully alike, but that’s not necessarily a terrible thing.
Posted by Diego Baez on Apr 22, 2009 @ 6:00 am