The Rapture – Pieces Of The People We Love (Universal)

Haters might argue that the slight shift that indie rock took towards the danceable ended when Hot Hot Heat switched to a major label, or when the Scissor Sisters committed the unconscionable and covered Pink Floyd. The haters would be wrong.

With their second full-length, Pieces Of The People We Love, New York based dance outfit the Rapture are once again doing what they do best—making music for your ass. There are handclaps and cowbells and synthesizers dripping from practically every chorus, yet the use doesn’t feel expected or dated. They even take aim specifically at the kids who just don’t dance anymore on the deliciously titled “Whoo! Alright, Yeah, Uh Huh,” complete with the shouty refrain “People don’t dance no more / They just stand there like this / They cross their arms and stare you down / and drink and moan and piss.” Elsewhere, the Rapture gets positively Oasis on you, with the midtempo seventies-throwback “Live In Sunshine,” which (more specifically) sounds like what would happen if Liam Gallagher, Freddie Mercury, and Yes were to get very drunk in a recording studio together. The atmosphere is so relentlessly danceable that none other than Cee-Lo Green, better known as “Gnarls Barkley,” blesses it by lending his backing vocals to the title track.

What comes to mind after repeated listenings to Pieces is the fact that not every record has to make grand, sweeping statements about society or politics or love to be memorable. In these uncertain times, sometimes all you want to do is shut up and dance, and get everyone around you to do the same. And really, there is nothing wrong with that.

MP3: The Rapture – “Get Myself Into It” (courtesy of AmpCamp).