Thursday, November 16, 2006

The Rapture, The Presets at Henry Fonda Theater, November 20



There’s always been more to Brooklyn-based band the Rapture than they’ve been given credit for. Because they’ve been overshadowed by their affiliation with indie dancehall crashers the DFA and deeply mired in the disco-punk shuffle of 2005, it would’ve been easy to chalk them up as a one-underground-hit wonder, thanks to the 2002 hipster anthem “House of Jealous Lovers,” which still sounds as furiously vital today as it did then. Their underappreciated debut, Echoes, found the band successfully experimenting with earnest ballads, moody techno and dramatic post-punk discordance. Now they’re back with Pieces of the People We Love, streamlining their sound into taut blasts of brainy, pop-tastic dance-rock for highbrow booty-shakers. With saxophones! The ’80s never sounded so good. Australian electro-twins the Presets get confrontationally digital like an irreverent, lo-fi version of the Knife.

(Originally published in the LA Weekly, 11/06)

0 comments: