SHITDISCO

This is a hell of a lot of fun on one CD. Like a cross between Talking Heads, Sweet, Killing Joke, "I know Kung Fu" kicks off rapid and delicious. The drumming enthralling, the bass simple and unrelenting and the guitar sparing. There's a real punk (or New Wave) flavour to the singing, though. Ironic, playful and knowingly trite. And there is a truly firestarting sense, a feeling of youth in a hurry.

And yes, it is postmodern. These guys like to make you aware of their education, claiming deconstruction in the first verse.

On "Reaction Party" it's all there, the sound of the underground (they say they've never heard of it), the bass of the Skids, the Woolworths keyboard squalls. But above all, it's fun.

The lyrics, too, are pure playfulness. "Left over Soviet infrastructure" in the "furthest outpost of bourgeois hardcore". Whatever they do in the evenings, these guys are never dull.

And if "Disco Blood" is a manifesto, it's a different type from the usual.
"Donna Summer got her in my thighs"
"Kelly Marie she's sitting on my knee"
"Giorgio Moroder got him on the phone"
"Bobby Orlando's coming round for tea"
It's uproar, and after madness ensues it closes with an almost lamenting falsetto refrain of "disco, disco, disco".... one which remains with you long after the album leaves....

"Dream of Infinity", too, kicks off with more of those fetching falsettos. Blimey they can be cute and smart at times, and with a drummer who keeps them rolling like a thundering train they could probably get away with murder, but the singing is wonderful entertainment, and sets Shitdisco apart from most of their contemporaries.

"3-D Sex show" is a 2007 update on Soft Cell, with lines like "Risk it all by exchanging fluids". Actually, at times sounding not unlike Killing Joke with the taut Gang of Four guitars against a truly wonderous rhythm section... it all makes the ironic lyrics stream by, mostly unnoticed.
Perhaps there is a little Franz Ferdinand too, but this music is at once rawer and more varied. More imagination and less scripture. Truly wonderful stuff.

If Punk Disco really is a movement, then these guys belong in the inner circle. You can't help thinking though that movements are not made of joy like this. This is just Byronic pleasure and educated nonsense with danceable rip roaring rhythms, daft lyrics and great vocals, best served loud.