AR: Louden Up Now / Take Ecstasy With Me EP

Editor's note: Take Ecstasy With Me EP came up next in the reviewing queue, but since that's just a two track EP, I thought I'd combine it with the other !!! album I have, Louden Up Now. I've also noticed that these reviews are getting longer and longer, so with albums like this (to which I don't have a whole ton of attachment) I'm going to try to be more succinct. I'll probably fail.

!!! - Louden Up Now (2004)

Simply enough: this is aggressive, angry electro-dance-pop that wears its post-punk influence (think Gang of Four, early Talking Heads) on its sleeve. It's all about grooves and defiance and delivers a 53 minutes of beat-drivers. Two complaints - one, I prefer the sparser sound of the influences to chock-full spaces here. There's too much going on in the busy spaces here; because they have a dark, bassy sound, everything mushes together and ends up droning rather than pulsating. Two, I accept that they're pissed off, but some of the tunes - "Pardon My Freedom," "Shit Scheisse Merde Pt. 1" are unbecoming in their lack of subtlety. The repeated "Like I give a shit / Like I give a fuck" lines in the former are particularly grating, and I'm not willing to grant some kind of hip political consciousness because the latter namechecks Geroge Bush and Tony Blair. It's a cool enough album, and I might even cave to the allmusic claim that it's an "agit-pop classic." I guess I just don't care enough for that genre to be too jazzed by its classics. Not to say that it's bad - definitely interesting and flush with cool beats / electronica ideas, and it's got a couple of big time highlights in the opener ("When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Karazee" and the sprawling "Me And Giuliani Down By The Schoolyard (A True Story)." I just think there are better post-punk and electronic music albums out there, and so this "synthesis" doesn't entirely do it for me.

Status: Not Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "Me And Giuliani Down By The Schoolyard (A True Story)"

!!! - Take Ecstasy With Me EP (2005)

Two covers comprise this seventeen and a half minute EP, the first a Magnetic Fields number and the latter one from Nate Dogg's (!) catalog. The first, "Take Ecstasy With Me," takes a lo-fi synth number and turns it into a pumping, majestic dancefloor remix classic, full of jangle and triumph. It's quite brilliant and could easily slide into a Depeche Mode > !!! > New Order sequence, which just trust is quite a note of admiration from me. The second song suffers from comparison to the original and comes off as a sort of hipster monotone take on a thumping hip-hop track. They do extend the song and jam it into the stratosphere, which is thoroughly interesting but isn't really enough to make the lackluster cover worthwhile. So the EP is a mixed bag, and maybe it's better just to think of it as the titular single, as that's definitely worth the price of admission.

Status: Recommended (solid)
Nyet's Fave: "Take Ecstasy With Me"