!!! Vinyl (Chk Chk Chk): Louden Up Now 2LP

Why you'll love it

The 2LP set of Louden Up Now on Touch and Go, the album AllMusic called a modern-day indie dance-rock classic. It includes "Hello? Is This Thing On?", "Pardon My Freedom" and the nine-minute "Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)", and James Murphy had a hand in mixing the opener.

This edition

2LP set, nine tracks over four sides
Touch and Go pressing

About the album

!!! (say it chk chk chk, or any three identical sounds, the band genuinely doesn't mind) came out of Sacramento's punk scene with a radical idea for a rock band: make people dance. Louden Up Now, their second album, is where it all came together, a sweaty collision of disco basslines, cowbell, post-punk guitar and Nic Offer yelping over the top. It came out in June 2004 on Touch and Go in North America and Warp everywhere else.

The centrepiece is "Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)", the 2003 single that turned New York's cabaret laws into a nine-minute protest party. Around it sit "Pardon My Freedom", "Hello? Is This Thing On?" and the two-part "Shit Scheisse Merde", with Maurice Fulton and James Murphy among the people at the mixing desk. The grooves are long, the energy never dips, and the whole thing still fills a floor two decades on.

It's the rare protest record you can do the robot to. We've checked.