[review 2004: the disappointments]

And so we begin with !!! and Louden Up Now, the most obvious sign that 2004 was the year dancepunk died. “Intensify” was a career highlight for !!!, and it seems as though they’ve been trying to top it ever since. “Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)” is the closest they’ve ever come, and it’s been downhill ever since. “Giuliani” was probably also the last track you could dance to at all; the most glaring omission on Louden Up Now is any sense of energy or rhythm.

Louden Up Now includes the previously-recorded “Giuliani,” and it’s easily the best track on the album. Opener “When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Karazzee” is the most similar new track, and also one of the more successful. “Dear Can” attempts to do something different and does reasonably well. But then there’s horrendous tripe like “Hello? Is This Thing On?” which contains three of the most annoying minutes put to tape this year. Aside from showing off some none-too-impressive multilingual skills, the “Shit Scheisse Merde” suite doesn’t do very much either. “Theme From Space Island” also tries to do something different, but forgets to be interesting.

Did !!! have a hand in dancepunk’s downfall? Arguably a lot of the blame has to go to other people, especially Radio 4 and their similarly unfortunate album Stealing Of A Nation. That album largely suffers from the same sickness afflicting Louden Up Now: a singular focus on being hip at the expense of being energetic and fun. So maybe it was just dancepunk’s time to die, too leaden with hipster irony and New York cool to be interesting anymore.