Infamous more for being CSS’s odd choice of shagging music than for their own cultural impact – their 2005 new rave hit Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above made them household names, in indier households – trunk-nosed Toronto disco punk duo Death From Above (nee 1979) have traded on their cultish mystery since returning from a 10-year studio hiatus with 2014’s second album The Physical World.
So, still on only their third full-length record in 17 years(!), DFA remain a pliable, evolving concept, and Outrage! is an attempt to sprawl in the vague direction of scuzz-rock respectability. Hiring QOTSA producer Eric Valentine has given their bluesy bluster a hint of Josh Homme’s desert Bowie sleaze on tracks like Never Swim Alone, Statues, Caught Up and Moonlight (about singing drummer Sebastien Grainger getting a savage street beating while on tour in Dallas), and nudged the likes of Freeze Me even further into the realm of all-out grit-pop.
There’s still space for the weird bits, though – Nomad is epic emo metal played, from the sound of it, on guitars made of burning asbestos, and the Royal Blood rifforama of NVR 4EVR literally features a shaker containing the ashes of a dead fan.
Outrageous fun.
