Family Force 5

Dance is a curious genre, and one of the several proofs that we critics are completely useless. For one, it’s largely repetitive—hence, it’s pretty difficult to pin commentary on compositions built around the very basics of musical theory: bass and percussion, theme and variation, dancer and dance floor. That’s not to imply that dance is somehow a “lesser” art, only that art criticism isn’t fully equipped to come to grips with the significance of a creative vision meant not for headphones and critic’s pens, but club floors and discos. This music finds life when people contribute to the layers of its soundtrack—to wit, not just the music itself, but the stomping of feet and the gyration of hips and the clapping of hands. Take this review as having a sort of margin of error: all the material here will be given greater significance when presented live, and I’ve not seen the live show.

Family Force 5 didn’t burst onto the scene with the flagrance or playfully un-cool airs of their debut album, Business Up Front / Party In The Back, alone. There were other things to consider beyond the music, such as the (derisory?) controversy brought on by their video for single “Love Addict,” featuring college-aged girls in hot pants trouncing about to the band’s Beastie Boys-meets-Limp Biskit form of rapcore. In retrospect, it was a silly thing for family watchdog groups to get so upset about—hot pants are the devil’s wrapping paper?—but, thankfully, there’s just as much exposure to gain from ticking off the masses as there is from winning every heart. And after two years of substantial radio play and the fight over that silly video, this sophomore effort won’t be released on an unsuspecting (or entirely unreceptive) audience.

Dance or Die is different, much different, from their debut. For one, there’s no white boy rapping to speak of—thank God. The metal/hard rock elements are kaput as well, and instead of intro-ing songs with screams, shouts, and not-so-veiled guitar, the mood is set with thin, distorted bleeps and buzzing synths; think Daft Punk or Justice (which are sort of the same thing anyway) cross-pollinating with Michael Jackson. This is decidedly a dance album, and the King of Pop’s influence is all over this baby, from the Thriller-esque title track and “D-I-E 4 Y-O-U” through their nod to Off the Wall, the obviously dubbed “Get Your Back Off The Wall.” These examples don’t trade in electric processing for hipping/hopping courtesy of Jackson’s brass band; nah, but the distorted noise and synthetic midi effects sound just as symphonic somehow: to every beep a purpose is granted, arranged just so. It’s controlled chaos, and it sounds…great? Yeah, actually.

And there’s a ballad! Melodrama is a fine line to walk without falling into the abyss of forgotten radio hits of the past. Sappy works so long as the canvas doesn’t take itself too seriously. For instance, when Chris Martin whines about being ignored by his special someone (cough “stalk victim” cough), it’s not so unforgivable since he was whining about “birds flying at the speed of sound” only a couple tracks before, and we know what a hopeless romantic he can be anyway—did I mention he whines? “Share It With Me” works much the same way; lines like “give me your love again, I won’t believe this again” aren’t exactly rich poetry (surprising, eh?), but they’re not supposed to be. The boy band vocals set the tone, and the biggest satisfaction of all is finding out after a couple plays that one actually feels kind of sorry for whichever of the boys has lost his one true love, inspiring this song. Sure, puppy love passes, but the memory rarely does. It’s sweet and prettily executed—simply put, it’s good.

All this material is good—no, great. I don’t have a single notable complaint. Deal with it. Even “Wake the Dead” (which I commented on in my review of the band’s EP as being a weak link) sounds worlds better in its final resting place on an album that administered more than a little anaphylactic shock after my first listen, if only because it neither served as a note-for-note rehash of Business (like most bands’ sophomore efforts), nor as a radio friendly, kiddy-pop album. In short, I was off-put by what I finally came to identify as growth: minor chord progressions, dissonant notes clouded together pell-mell, and smart if sardonic lyrics. Growth? Indeed. It’s growth for a band that, in one album, went from making “teenybopper sleepover music” to a retro-worship, self-parodying force of nature.

Dance or Die won’t satisfy everybody. Some industry insiders and critics might (who am I kidding, will) complain that the band aren’t “spiritually insightful,” but there’s more to the joy found in Christ than repeating the most scriptures verbatim, and our art belongs to the whole world, not just fellow believers. Others won’t like the shift in tone/style, and chalk it up to the dreaded sophomore slump, an argument that doesn’t hold water considering how subtly sown together all the ideas appear to be—slumps are for the lazy; this is not a slump. The rest of the demographics will fall between those who hear Dance or Die and love it and those who don’t hear it at all. It is what it is: an album that needs neither my praise nor my detriment; it pretty fully speaks for itself, and in a depressed decade wrought with tragedy after tragedy, its otherworldly lack of cynicism and eye to the past make Dance or Die the best dance album I’ve heard in a couple years.

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