Albums : !!! (Chk Chk Chk) : Thr!!!er

Albums : !!! (Chk Chk Chk) : Thr!!!er

Listen To !!! (Chk Chk Chk) : Thr!!!er

Who Is !!! (Chk Chk Chk)?
!!!, which can be pronounced by repeating any one-syllable percussive sound three times (e.g., "chk chk chk"), formed in 1996 after the demise of the Yah Mos; while on tour, members of that post-hardcore act envisioned forming a band oriented toward danceable music, and once they returned to their native Sacramento, California, they turned the concept into an actual group. The band quickly became an eight-member ensemble: Nic Offer on vocals, Mario Andreoni on guitar, Justin van der Volgen on bass, Dan Gorman on trumpet and percussion, Tyler Pope on guitar, Allan Wilson on saxophone and percussion, Mikel Gius on drums, and Jason Racine on percussion.

!!! spent its first few years developing its groove-oriented, post-punk-indebted sound while playing local house parties. At the same time, Offer, Pope, and van der Volgen were in a dub-inflected instrumental outfit called Out Hud. After releasing a 7" on Hopscotch and a split single with Out Hud in 1998, the two bands issued a split full-length, a 1999 release jointly sponsored by Gold Standards Laboratories (a Sacramento label) and Zum (a San Francisco zine).

After extensive touring of the States, !!! released a self-titled album on GSL in December 2000. Soon after, the band re-entered the studio and recorded enough material for a follow-up. Some members moved to New York, but the group remained intact and active as it booked regional tours. In 2003, the band issued Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story), its first release — a ringing, hypnotic single nine minutes in length — for Touch & Go. It set the tone for 2004's politically charged Louden Up Now, mixed to bold effect by Maurice Fulton. The relatively lighthearted Myth Takes and Strange Weather, Isn't It? (their first for new label Warp) were the band's third and fourth albums, released respectively in March 2007 and August 2010. Before their next album, there were some major personnel shifts, as longtime member Pope departed and was replaced by bassist Rafael Cohen, and drummer Paul Quattrone joined. The group's fifth album, Thr!!!er was released in April of 2013 and featured production by Spoon's Jim Eno and vocals from Sonia Moore, a one-time backing vocalist for MC Hammer.

Thr!!!er
In a way, 2010’s Strange Weather, Isn’t It? was !!!’s coming-out party. After serving the dance-punk underground funked-up electronic jams with a wink ever since 2003’s excellent “Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story),” the Brooklyn sextet beefed up its beats and waved its disco flag with pride on its fourth album. On the fifth, Thr!!!er, !!! (still pronounced “chk chk chk”) shakes its groove things like it just stumbled on the secret to dance-floor happiness.

From the start, !!! wasn’t out to revolutionize dance-punk, though it was, along with LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture, one of the first groups to revitalize the mostly forgotten post-punk offshoot at the turn of the millennium. The group falls somewhere between its two contemporaries—way more committed to sound and style than The Rapture, who seem to average one great song per album, but not nearly as consistent as LCD, whose three albums rank among the decade’s best.

Their aspirations are no higher on Thr!!!er, a groove-heavy cool-club record that never takes on more than it can handle. With most songs clocking in at about four minutes, it doesn’t waste too much time setting up or coming down; tracks hit the dance floor somewhere near top speed and end roughly around the same pace. It takes less than 10 seconds of the opening song, “Even When The Water’s Cold,” for a vocal to show up. That’s pretty efficient.

But that efficiency doesn’t leave much room for the push-pull release typically found in the best dance music. There aren’t too many curveballs on Thr!!!er. Besides the occasional falsetto, stray handclap, or wah-wah synth, almost everything here can be taken on face value. And sometimes it works magnificently, like on “Slyd,” which borrows its springy bassline from Chic, and on “One Girl/One Boy,” which features a hook sung by Sonia Moore, who pulled similar duty on MC Hammer’s “Too Legit To Quit.” But mostly it’s a passable dance hybrid climbing out of the underground and inching toward the mainstream, one wink at a time.


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