polaroids of androids

There are two ways of looking at !!! (chk chk chk). One is that if they are to be so arrogant that they name their band using only punctuation marks that they are not even worth spitting on. The other is that if they name their band as previously described, they obvisouly don't give a shit what you think, and they probably don't want you as a fan if you question and analyse every little fucking decision. More to the point, they don't give a shit about whether you like their music and so it becomes more of an expression of their own tastes than trying to please a certain audience. As we all know, this "don't give a fuck" attitude towards making music usually yields the best results, and that's where Myth Takes comes in.

From the opening title track's muffled whistles, blips and atmospheric chirps layed over one of the better bass lines of the last 20 years, you get the feeling that the band hasn't really listened to much "conventional" music in their time. The frantic pace of All My Heroes Are Weirdos is a perfect compliment leading into Must Be The Moon which comes as close as the band ever get on the album to a radio friendly single, while still remaining fresh and innovative when compared to almost anything else. And that's just the first 3 tracks.

As the album progresses, a somewhat sinister and dark mood is the only constant between tracks that at one moment are frantically trying to not explode, and at other times drift along slower, but with just enough of a hint of something more to come that it never becomes boring. Sweet Life is a perfect example of this, with it's emotive brooding choruses complimented by a mental onslaught of drums, yelling and other instrumentation that is almost impossible to not sing along to.

The end of the album brings feelings of fantastic confusing that can only be lessened with repeat listens. It's the repeatability of the album, made of genre that is not well known for such an attribute, that makes this record something a little bit special.