Sound of Silver

LCD SOUNDSYSTEMSOUND OF SILVER

Reviewing an LCD Soundsystem album isn’t that hard of a thing to do for a music snob. After all, LCD honcho James Murphy - despite what he wants you to think on his sophomore album, Sound of Silver - is the one of the biggest music snobs you’re likely to find. Don’t believe me? Listen to his anathematic, “Losing My Edge,” now available for mass consumption via the bonus disc of the first LCD album.

Just as soon as I left my teen years behind I accepted it, I was, as so many had called me for so long, a “music snob.” What this means seems forever unclear, but it usually only means that, when in a situation that calls for the discussion of music, you’re more likely to articulately verbalize the reasons you like or dislike this or that record than your peers are. Basically, it just means that you think about music a whole lot more than the average Joe. As the chief snob returns for his second album, a world of very modern music aficionados sit wringing their hands, waiting patiently for some new protocol of cool. While Silver isn’t the uncompromising artistic statement the first album was, it is still very great in it’s own way. It may even be better, depending on what you look for in a LCD album.

Sure, Sound of Silver starts out as a disco-meets-electronica album with its Another Green World-friendly opener, “Get Innocuous!,” but don’t be fooled, Murphy has designs on rock gods this time out. Need proof? Skip directly to “North American Scum,” the “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” of the album. Luckily for fans of that song, much of Sound of Silver resembles the more organic-meets-modern (in a dancehall with rock kids) aspects of Murphy’s first effort. Needless to say, “Daft Punk” and “Never As Tired As When I’m Waking Up” turned out to be more than genre experiments.

Murphy flops back and forth between trodden shout shout vocals and a early-era Brian Eno impression. The elements of his music are playful and modern, but also witty and rock star-ready. His writing ability, while not at all groundbreaking or poetic, functions well over his processed beats, ambient fills and punk-approved riffs and rants.

And sure, Murphy’s still the same guy who once sang about Can and Neu like they were Britney and Christina, but there’s something very contradictory about him these days, and I’m not just talking about the crotch photo in Silver’s liner notes. First Murphy started pleading with fans to buy his album via interviews, not because he wanted his music to be heard, but he openly admitted to wanting to have his album chart in the Top 40 during its first week. You might think that this new fascination with mainstream attention and notoriety would affect Silver in a negative way, but the results, surprisingly, are quite the contrary.

On this contradictory second album Murphy creates, yes, more accessible songs, but he manages to keep his approach arty and his complex. He’s singing and, for the most part, he’s moved more towards experimental rock and further away from pure electronic dance music. That can never, ever, ever, ever, ever be a bad thing. Sound of Silver is without a doubt the sound of now.  9/10

Written by G. William Locke