Review Summary: Just dance, gonna be okay.
Bass and drum are often the most overlooked instruments in a typical rock band. The rhythm that these two instruments provide is often underappreciated in favor of the melody of the guitar, piano, and voice. But the rhythm creates the backbone of the music, the support system that the melody relies on, imitating the way that muscles and skin are laid over bone. Death From Above 1979 embraces this rhythm, making it the basis for their own form of unique dance punk.
Death From Above 1979 was a duo of musicians, active from 2001 to 2006, made up of Jesse Keeler and Sebastien Grainger, a bassist and drummer respectively. The Head’s Up EP is their first recording, a six song record that launched the band’s career.
The group used this EP to begin refining the heavy rhythmic dance songs that would take them through their career, using the sheer power of the bass and drum to force the listener to move. The album is an energetic thrill ride that starts with a bang and doesn’t let up on the groove throughout all 15 minutes of sound. The drums are spectacular, especially considering the fact that Grainger is singing as he is drumming. Grainger makes his drums as loud as possible, crashing cymbals and working his bass pedal to make him heard. The vocals on the album are laden with effects, from the doubling on “Dead Womb” to the synthesized singing on “Do It (Live).” The bass is often greatly distorted, adding to the massive wall of sound that the band is able to wring out of just two instruments. Synthesizers abound on the record, adding a ton of groove to the mix. I dare you not to at least tap your foot during the synth breakdown on “If We Don’t Make It We’ll Fake It.” The band’s sound is intense, fast, and above all groovy.
But the thing that makes this album is the amount of fun it is to listen to. It is an absolute blast to listen to. The rhythm drives, the bass pounds, the drums crash, and the synthesizers groove. The album is too short to get boring, and every song is a blast. The group disbanded in 2006, but their excellence lives on in this record, an exciting, rhythm-laden groove-fest that left its mark on dance punk.
