Having broken up after their wonderful debut
album came out 9 years ago – how has it been almost a decade? – the dirge punk
masters return with album 2. And it’s
better than we could have possibly hoped for. Band reunions are often a
bittersweet mixture of the return of a lost sound that you loved and the
realisation that the band aren’t as good as they used to be. Not a bit of it here: The Physical World is as raw and vital as I’m a Woman, You’re a Machine was in 2005, and (for me) surpasses
its predecessor on virtually every front.
How they make this fantastic racket with only two people: bass and drums
(guitars notable by their absence) is beyond me. Everything is again de-tuned down to rumble
along menacingly, and the scraping, rough as f*ck riffs that are their
trademark remain. The improvement here
is really in the song-writing. Every
track on show is one that will stick in your head. Frankly I can’t pick a favourite or even a
list of highlights: the ‘highlight’ is all of it. But it is worth noting the creepy piano
sections of ‘The Physical World’ and the poppier vibe of ‘Trainwreck 1979’,
simply because they demonstrate notable deviations from the usual Death From Above 1979 template and, as
such, add new twists and suggest hidden depths. Again, I’m really not sure how this only ended
up third. Let’s hope it’s not another 9 years before
album 3.
sample track: Cheap Talk