Album Review: !!! - THR!!!ER

It has to be said – it's a pretty audacious move to name your record in homage to one of the great dance pop albums of all time. Especially if you're a dance pop act. That said, if any band of the last two decades have earned the right to do something completely, ahem, off the wall, it's surely !!!. Guitarist Mario Andreoni has explained that the Brooklyn groove survivors chose the title as it seemed to represent an “artist and/or genre's high-water mark”. As in: INXS's Kick is the Australian Thriller, Jagged Little Pill is the Canadian Thriller... and so on. So far; still pretty audacious. In fact the only way that !!! could talk themselves out of this one is by making the biggest, boldest, funkiest album of their career. So that's what they did.

This being their fifth album, Andreoni, singer Nic Offer and their latest crew (they've 'Spinal Tapped' a few drummers) have turned to Spoon producer Jim Eno to bring THR!!!LER to life. Apparently Eno was a big fan of the band's live show but felt they were trying too hard to capture this energy in the studio. His influence is immediately obvious in opener Even When The Water's Cold as the snappy bass and snare immediately recall Britt Daniel's much loved outfit. Eno's greatest strength though is knowing when to get out of the way, as he does on any number THR!!!LER's pounding dance pop anthems. For !!! to stay this focussed and relevant years after the music world was supposed to have passed them by is a testament not only to their enduring vision, but also to their status as a great band; plain and simple.