!!!

Dance-rock luminaries !!! secured their reputation as a delirium-inducing live act years ago, bolstered by the strength of unstoppable singles like "Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)" that were marathon blasts of sex, funk, and fizzy electronic energy. The party-hearty eight-piece may always be best experienced in person, but Myth Takes is an impressive attempt at bottling the lightning and turning listeners' living rooms into sweaty dancefloors.

The perfectly calibrated tracks "Must Be the Moon" and "Heart of Hearts" contain the expected doses of hypnotic high-speed beats and psychedelic jamming, streamlined into the relatively succinct runtime of six minutes each. Sandwiched between them, "A New Name"—built around an angular riff and a strutting falsetto—slows down the pace but remains just as inspired.

Frontman Nic Offer takes heat sometimes for his lack of lyrical nuance, but his bawdy narratives and sing-songy rhymes are an essential and effective component of the !!! sound, as when he boasts about a sexual conquest in "Must Be the Moon" ("1 time, 2 time, 3 times, 4 - but really who was keeping score?") only to later reveal that he left his lover unsatisfied ("She said 'You just got me hot / I finished off while you were snoring'").

Though it stumbles twice—on the pedestrian mid-tempo rocker "Sweet Life" and the unnecessarily ambient closer, "Infinifold"—Myth Takes delivers us from dance apathy with infectious insistence. Let someone else soundtrack the comedown; !!! are all about the high.

- Adam McKibbin
03.06.07

Of all the dance-punk revivalists, !!! has been the most consistently interesting and challenging, not to mention the group most likely to fill the dancefloor on indie rock night. While their previous album, the political and righteous Louden Up Now, was good enough to vault them to the level of the bands that inspired them (Gang of Four, the Pop Group, Liquid Liquid), Myth Takes firmly establishes them there. It's a different fire that burns here for !!!, mostly setting aside political concerns for fiery dancefloor rave-ups. The band sounds inspired, like they are plugged directly into a wall socket. The first three tracks are like opening a door and being blasted backward by a wall of flame and heat. Nic Offer's vocal chants, asides, and strung-together proclamations are more frantic than ever, and when he turns it down a notch, he sounds nearly sexy (as on "Must Be the Moon," a desperate story of sex and lust in the city). He has to be a live wire of energy to keep up with the band, which burns brightly and plays like they have something to prove from beginning to end. This is especially true of Justin van der Volgen, whose bass work underpins the freewheeling walls of chik-ing guitars with a fluid and funky bottom. His production is a masterwork, balancing and blending a kaleidoscope of guitars, drums, percussion, keys, and vocals. The record could have easily sounded like a mess, but he makes it sound alive and raw. When !!! finally slows things down after that initial burst, they do some interesting things -- "Heart of Hearts" is a dancefloor filler that manages to sound menacing and rubbery at the same time, "Break in Case of Anything" is a kitchen-sink funk epic that has elements of disco, dub, hip-hop, and a killer horn section, and "Yadnus" is a fun mash-up of glitter drumbeats, tough-guy vocals, chicken-scratch guitars, and sweeping synths. The only tracks that let the side down a bit are the slightly generic "Bend Over Beethoven," which sounds like something they could have come up with in their sleep, and the ballad that ends the album, "Infiniford." On that last song, Offer's vocals don't suit the somber mood very well, and it's a down note to end such a wild ride of an album. These stumbles aside, Myth Takes is a thrilling success. Not too many bands even in heyday of the initial wave of dance-punk released records as full of energy, intelligence, and ferocious funk as this. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide