LCD Soundsystem

It had been long enough; disco was ready for a comeback. The gods of percussion came to James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy one night, coked up and wearing roller skates, and blessed the pair -- better known as the DFA -- with hi-hats and cowbells. The duo met up with previously forgettable punk outfit the Rapture and cooked up the lead single "House of Jealous Lovers." Thus the disco-punk sound was reborn. Murphy's solo project, LCD Soundsystem, got the DFA hook-up. "Yeah," the group's defining single, is typical: Murphy dropping garbled complaints about inaction over disco bass lines, culminating in ugly synth insanity.

The album sounds like the individual influences of "Yeah," and the DFA in general, picked apart and strewn across nine tracks. "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House Party" uses a Gary Numan-esque '80s synth-rock lead. "Too Much Love" evokes a synthetic incarnation of Soul Coughing. The Cars, the Kinks and New Order also show up prominently on Murphy's sleeve. LCD Soundsystem makes sense but feels like extensive footnotes to the entire DFA back catalog. The album is not bad, but it pales in comparison to the bonus disc of seven previously released LCD Soundsystem singles. "Yeah" is better than anything on the album, because the whole is truly better than the sum of its parts.