Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 16/04/07
Label: Fierce Panda

Substantially less hyped; slightly more scrappy; fractionally more daft and almost as certainly as exciting as The Klaxons, Shitdisco have just turned in their first album. It's always a worry waiting to hear a "new rave" album for the first time for numerous reasons. The main one being that it's completely unhelpful as a genre in that it doesn't describe a style of music (Shitdisco don't sound anything like New Young Pony Club who don't sound anything like Justice who don't sound anything like Supersystem who don't…well, you get the picture).

It also doesn't categorise a group of people - let's face it, outside of Camden and Hoxton and the pages of "Dazed & Confused", if you go to a Shitdisco gig the only thing really unifying the crowd outside of their relative youthfulness and hyper-excitement are the glo-sticks. So even if The Klaxons coined the term as a joke, it's stuck: and it's a type of music typified by a person who carries a little plastic tube that lights up when you snap it. Coming next: the "nu new romantics". You'll be able to tell them by the fact they all wear shoes.

So when the tag dies, presumably a lot of bands will suffer accordingly. Will Shitdisco (stupid name aside) be one of them? Let's hope not on the strength of their Fierce Panda debut. It's frenetic, kinetic and livelier than a sack full of eels. The broad brushstrokes see they are pretty much solidly punk funk in the vein of DFA's Pixeltan with short bursts of student friendly surreal indie skronk, like we used to get from Bis.

"Kingdom Of Fear" will divide people, with some decrying it as being a bit rough around the edges, having silly lyrics and a guy doing the "boo boo!" noise from Kelly Marie's "Feel's Like I'm In Love" with his mouth instead of, y'know, tracking down a vintage synth and spending three weeks creating the perfect sound like James Murphy would have done. And some of the younger folk will love it for exactly the same reason.

The album opens with a barnstorming "I Know Kung Fu", which sounds like The Rapture at 140bpm. "Reactor Party", is a DIY call to arms for everyone who likes dancing (especially in decommissioned nuclear facilities: "We've never heard of the Ministry Of Sound, we've never heard of the underground!") With "Dream Of Infinity" and singles "Disco Blood" and "OK" being other stand-out tracks, Shitdisco's debut is commendably off-kilter, off-message and fun, like the sound of a house party trapped on a CD.

    by John Doran