After their triumphant reunion on sophomore album
The Physical World in 2014, 9 years after
their debut, the two-piece Canadian dance-punk experimentalists formerly known
as Death From Above 1979 (the ‘1979’
now having been dropped) return rather quicker with album three. The Physical World was a minor miracle,
matching (if not surpassing) its predecessor after such a long break. Outrage! Is Now perhaps never quite
reaches the levels of those first two albums, but the quality here still is
notably high. Stand out track ‘Holy
Books’ would be at home on either previous release, as would the wonderful
opener ‘Nomad’. Indeed, throughout, the
same ‘how do two people make music that sounds so muscular’ detuned-bass template
remains, but there also are signs of growth. For example, synthesisers (‘Never
Swim Alone’) and keyboards (single ‘Freeze Me’) are more prominent here. Another development is that, despite the franticness
of songs like ‘All I C Is U & Me’, Death
From Above show more willingness
on Outrage! Is Now to take the foot
off the petal at times, with the steady rumblings of ‘Caught Up’ and ‘Statutes’
adding further variety. This is their
most interesting and diverse record, which bodes well for the future. The songs are not as uniformly strong as has
been the case on previous albums, and, lyrically, the shift from their
trademark brawny love songs to social commentary perhaps was ill-advised (though
one can hardly blame them for wanting to have their say on the state of the
world right now). Overall, this is another
album of extremely high quality from a band that is yet to release a record
that hasn’t made the top 10 of my albums of the year list.
sample track: Holy Books