American Dream feels like Murphy's darkest record to date, and like previous LCD records, only gets better with repeat listens. In short, it's fucking glorious.
Who would’ve thought that a once impossible record would be one of the best of the year? After a breakup, reunion, and a few delays, LCD Soundsystem’s fourth record is a triumphant return for James Murphy and company. With more live instrumentation, attitude and sonic diversity than any of their previous releases, this is one that won’t disappoint fans or even new listeners.
‘American Dream’ delivers, point by point, on everything you could want from an LCD Soundsystem album.
American Dream represents a high point for Murphy, not only as a songwriter, but also as a meticulous sonic architect and an exuberant performer.
As far as American Dream being better than that estimable trilogy that preceded it, well, it depends mightily on how you define “better.” It’s a beautifully produced, masterfully realized album, but it’s also a bit of a downer and an unusually slow burn.
As gratifyingly familiar as much of American Dream will be to longtime fans, it also feels like exactly the album 2017 needs — urgent, angry, achingly self-aware.
Throughout American Dream Murphy is looking inward more than ever, it’s just that age allows him to apply hard won wisdom to his fears.
American Dream is the upshot of a darker, older, wiser LCD Soundsystem.
James Murphy and his band of collaborating friends have yet to make a wrong turn over the course of three previous records and American Dream doesn’t blow the perfect game, taking a low-key approach to underscore why people love LCD Soundsystem in the first place.
While its 1970s and ‘80s influences, whizz-bang synths, and froggy vocals are entirely recognizable, American Dream finds Murphy pushing his compatriots and his own psyche into new, unfamiliar, and often uncomfortable territory. Which is exactly why, as far as reunion albums by aging bands go, this one is about as gratifyingly unpredictable as anyone could have hoped for.
It’s not that American Dream is subdued, but it certainly lacks straightforward party rippers like “Drunk Girls” and “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House”. That’s not an accident, either; this is, by a long distance, the most introspective work that Murphy has yet turned out.
For now, American Dream does exactly what a new LCD Soundsystem album should do: it brings back the rush that listening to the band always has, and adds a compelling new dimension to the band's sound — a mature, realist darkness that they'd only hinted at previously — that suggests Murphy might have been temporarily out of motivation, but he was never out of ideas.
No matter the style or mood of the songs, Murphy's vocals are the main attraction, delivering snaky asides, heartfelt emotion, and insistent chatter in his trademark fashion. The years off haven't quite mellowed him or made him a crooner; he still mixes the tart with the bittersweet like a master chef. The years haven't made LCD Soundsystem any less relevant or important, either.
James Murphy and his wrecking crew of New York punk-disco marauders don't waste a moment on the superb American Dream – it's a relentless, expansive, maddeningly funny set of songs asking how a lifetime of good intentions and hard work can blow up into such a mess.
Making synths and guitars, songwriting and motorik rhythms all work together so well has always been at the heart of LCD Soundsystem. And thankfully, they still do their thing magnificently well. Age be damned.
Pop stares down the abyss, Murphy seems to be saying, so carpe diem – except, this being LCD Soundsystem, it’s more about seizing the night, where three minutes can unfurl into for ever.
American Dream does offer a lot from a songwriting standpoint, and why wouldn’t it? Murphy is a skilled producer with a deft ear for melody. But he’s somehow disrupted that valuable balance of humor and thoughtfulness found in LCD Soundsystem’s past with a more sedate offering that is riddled with mixed messages.
american dream is a great reconciliation of the two sides of LCD Soundsystem: the post-punk side that wants to rock us to hell and the post-disco/new wave side that wants to get fucked up and dance. american dream draws out good reflections on the monotony of daily life and the sadness it often brings.
American Dream ... is effectively a straight continuation of its predecessor’s amalgam of electropop, new wave and krautrock, in varying proportions, with varying success.
New York indietronic legends LCD Soundsystem return with a tepid set of songs with washed out mixes and lackluster lyrics.
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