Album Review: !!! (Chk Chk Chk) – Wallop

26 August 2019 | 10:51 am | Guido Farnell

"There's a funkiness about everything !!! try on this album."

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It seems like a very long time since !!! and LCD Soundsystem enthusiastically burst onto the scene pushing tunes with disco and not-disco influences into a nasty rash of punk-funk with a distinctly New York sound. 

These days !!!, with a bigger and fatter bottom bass end, bounce and jiggle to a funky electro-house sound. While the beats speak less to indie and more to club dancefloors, they are shoehorned into a three- to four-minute pop format that provides frontman Nic Offer a platform from which to indulge in verse and chorus musings. 

The synth-heavy Wallop moves like a kaleidoscope, without focus in a bunch of different directions, often simultaneously. Serbia Drums comes with an amusingly trashy '80s pop vibe while Let It Change U washes over you like an EDM 3am rave-up. Off The Grid continues the vibe with streetwise female vocals that throw back to the early days of hip hop and the likes of Roxanne Shanté. There's a funkiness about everything !!! try on this album – even when trying their hand at '00s-styled electroclash on UR Paranoid or $50 Million. A band with plenty on their mind, !!! continues to evolve their sound in unexpected ways.