LCD Soundsystem get better and better all the time. Their second album, Sound of Silver, still utilizes their processed techno deliciousness, but this time out the James Murphy-led band has developed not just a cosmos of spectacular sound, but they’ve added an overall emotional arc that has this disc playing out like an indie rock opera. Move over Tommy, because LCD is on the scene!
The album starts out on a high with the brash “Get Innocuous.” The song rages and grows in intensity like a party kid who can’t wait until nightfall on Friday. “Time to Get Away,” with its funked-out groove, continues the nightly rave. You can easily imagine Prince jacking these beats for his new album—post-Bible study, of course.
“North American Scum” starts to get to the heart of the love/hate relationship the album (and the entire world) currently has with America, meaning the US of A. Canada might as well pack up their hockey teams and leave the continent. Even LCD agrees as they rant “make the same mistakes all over again/c’mon north American, don’t blame the Canadians”. They go on to namecheck the land of stars and stripes as big and bloated—our djs aren’t fun, and we don’t have never-ending parties like they do in Spain and Berlin.
All is happy once again, though, as we trip our way through the pounding piano chord song “All My Friends” and the-world-is-burning-so-we-might-as-well-dance thrasher “Us V Them.” This track could go down as the ultimate ode to dance club decadence. The lyrics are particularly pointed, “all the clever people wanna tell you/that all the little people wanna dance.” Anyone whose spent a few late night hours in the clubs of any major music city can attest that LCD is speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
But, like all good LCD parties, there comes a time to pay the piper. The band deals with their own personal hangover and the general malaise that has attacked NYC in the past few years with a heartwrenching, worn-down song called “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” It plays like a hipster’s coming of age song when he finds himself looking at his playground of a city after one too many parties and suddenly asks himself, “What the hell happened to this place I used to know?” or as LCD puts it, “there’s a ton of the twist but we’re fresh out of shout”. The tune goes on to say that New York is “bringing me down” and “freaking me out,” but still, for all the time that LCD spends attacking NYC, they end by saying “you’re still the one pool where I’d happily drown.”
It’s true. The place is a bit of a wreck these days but hey, it’s still OUR wreck.
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