United State of Electronica are a party band, and on their self-titled debut, they pull out all the stops for mindlessly awesome celebratory ambiance: giant, anthemic hooks, a deference to dance before song-to-song variety, shit-for-brains lyrics, some vaguely political obnoxiousness, and, if they're being ironic, a remarkably impenetrable sense of irony. The record pulls no punches: Each track is stuffed with simple and catchy vocal and guitar melodies set against tight, no-frills rhythm sections and a Basement Jaxx-worthy sonic overload in between. And with one big exception, the disc is front-to-back footworthy, never losing a bit of the steam it works up to within its first minute out of the speakers. In fact, though it's probably to say too much or too little, U.S.E. could very well be 2004's Junior Senior: their debut delivers the immediate gratification that we came to associate with last year's D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat, and given the density of some of these songs, U.S.E. might eventually pack a little more replay value than their '03 predecessors.
The songs are consistently solid here, but if we're to rally behind one song as a possible single, "Emerald City" seems the surest shot: Its glittery vocoded opening gives way to a steady rhythmic pump and spiraling, intertwined choral and guitar melodies. As the track progresses, U.S.E. wisely reconfigure their instrumentation, most notably keeping in check the guitar lines-- which could have been a mess of riffage and FX-aerobics-- without leaving them unrequited.
Elsewhere, "Climb the Walls" features some dynamic synth and guitar lines working wonders in tandem amidst ambient party noise and bass thump, and the shouts, horns, and seering guitar riffs that serve as the prologue to "Open Your Eyes" are rivaled only by the further developed reincarnations as the song plays out. "Vamos a la Playa", meanwhile, appropriates what U.S.E. seems to think is a characteristically "Latin" shuffle, and with huge help from an 80s synthesizer line, anchors the album's last third quite well. U.S.E.'s only critical misfire is when they tread in the shark pit of "Night Shift", whose G. Love-style pleasure rapping should have been confined to another plane. Still, U.S.E. have put together a consistent collection of well-considered, boneheaded party anthems: Their album is just terribly fun-- nothing more, nothing less.
