Home > Los Angeles Music > CD Review > Simian Mobile Disco, "Attack Decay Sustain Release"

Backstory: Once upon a time, there was a quirky, electronically inclined indie-pop band known as Simian. They released a couple of critically well-received CDs on the Astralwerks label, but never exactly burned up the blogosphere or Billboard charts. Then in 2003, French heavy metal disco duo Justice retooled their tune “Never Be Alone” into “We Are Your Friends,” which blew up into one of the biggest dance tracks of the past decade. Simian the band soon disintegrated, with members Simon William Lord and James Anthony Shaw forming the decidedly danceable Simian Mobile Disco.

Why you should care: SMD have already made a major mark on the dance music scene as highly sought-after remixers, overhauling tracks by the Go! Team, Klaxons and Muse into party-starting floor-burners. With electronica again on the rise, SMD is primed to make inroads alongside contemporaries like Digitalism, Boys Noize and Justice.

Verdict: Minimal techno, early Depeche Mode and catchy, disco-fied dance-pop (“Hustler,” “It’s The Beat”) are the key influences on this cool collection of simmering after-hours butt-shakers. “Wooden” is a synth-heavy tribute to classic Detroit techno, “Tits & Acid” hearkens back to the glory days of Chicago house, and “I Got This Down” turns up the freaky funk. A sonic sameness permeates many of the tracks, although it doesn’t diminish the club-ready impact of the beats.

X-Factor: Another former Simian member, James Ellis Ford, has also jumped on the dance bandwagon by joining electro-rockers the Black Ghosts with DJ Touché, who was behind the Wiseguys and their smash hit “Start the Commotion.”

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