Death From Above 1979 both embraces and transcends its dance-punk roots

For as popular as dance-punk was in the early-to-mid-’00s, the major bands from that time—a crop that included Yeah Yeah Yeahs, !!!, The Rapture, and Liars, to name a few—very quickly evolved their sounds beyond sharp guitar bursts, staticky keyboards, and manic tempos. In hindsight, this progression can be seen as a survival mechanism more than anything. The intrinsic volatility of this particular strain of dance-punk generated significant instability. In fact, one of the genre’s leading acts, Death From Above 1979, imploded after just one full-length, You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine. Perhaps that’s why The Physical World—the group’s second full-length and first in a decade—feels like it has unfinished business to take care of. The title track is corrugated robo-punk with an undercurrent of synthesizer anarchy, the surprisingly poppy “Gemini” boasts haywire keyboard-mewling paired with grimy post-punk distortion, and “Government Trash” is precarious post-hardcore chaos wrapped in scraggly fuzz. “Cheap Talk,” meanwhile, conjures both The Rapture’s percussive euphoria and The Von Bondies’ garage scuzz.