As we prepare to kiss the Aughts goodbye, you'd think that trends that ran their course over the past 10 years should be put to rest. Were that true, one of the last things we should be spending our time with in the final days of 2009 is the second record from a spazzy, lo-fi electro-funk band from Montreal. But to their credit, Think About Life's sophomore album doesn't feel passé-- even if the best qualities on Family have already been used on better records. Melding the four-on-the-floor funk and falsetto of their neighbors in Chromeo, the chaotic, catchy samples of the Go! Team, the eight-bit blips of Crystal Castles, and the soulful vocals of TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, the raucous, lightweight songs of Think About Life feel like they were designed in a lab to get indie kids dancing.
Family is, however, the definition of front-loaded. Its three best songs-- "Johanna", "Havin' My Baby", and "Sweet Sixteen"-- kick off the album, which then spends the rest of its runtime trying to reach the blissful highs of its opening trifecta. Thanks to a fixation with both radio-ready hip-hop and weirdo synth-punk, Miracle Fortress' Graham Van Pelt (the band's producer, keyboardist, and primary sound architect) gives Think About Life an adaptable aesthetic that is equal parts rococo hedonism and arty affectation. To wit, "Johanna" kicks off with an incongruously groovy flute sample before giving into the rhythmic horns and funky guitars that could be a bed for a Kanye single; "Havin' My Baby" is built on a sped-up sugar-rush hook repeated so insistently that we dare you to get it out of your head; and "Sweet Sixteen" builds a sexy, deadpan groove worthy of James Murphy out of videogame bleeps and a steady, sparse beat.
As proved by the album's opening songs, Think About Life are at their best when they are playing fast. The furious energy of their buzzing synthesizers and throbbing basslines are often enough to make up for some of the more uninspired melodies or overly repetitive sections (especially given that they have washed off much of the noisy grime of their debut). But that is not to say that the album's slower moments are all duds. "The Veldt" is built on a plucky, almost dubby guitar melody and prominently features an ascending melody (with appropriately reflective lyrics) ripped from the Temptations' "My Girl". And the juxtaposition of the band's most synthetic impulses (the skittering, interrupted dance beat, the glossy, almost Italo disco synths, the chirpy vocal sample) against Martin Cesar's most world-weary, emotive vocals on "Nueva Nueva" is disarmingly tender.
With its sloppy, homemade charm and riotous dancefloor impulses, Family is easy to like, but in an era of likeminded indie dance dabblers, equally easy to forget. Songs like "Havin' My Baby" are so winningly infectious that they will buy the band some time on the cultural radar. But as an album, Family feels a bit like the last gasp of an era.
