Feel the bass.
The joy of repetition is all over this record. The lyrics pound into your brain and because so many lines pop up countless amount of times, certain phrases will be stuck in your head after one listen. The song titles are really mentioned over and over, with opener 'Black Bunker' being the first of many tracks to get this treatment. 'Do You Know Your Butcher' follows on and whilst it may be a social commentary about how the local shops are being placed out of the marketplace and the modern world, it still manages to slip in some eerie lines and shouty sections with some pauses that work wonderfully. It may not be the most obvious topic for a song this year but it shows the band put some consideration into their work.
Musically, there are a lot of similarities going on throughout this record, no doubt influenced by the lack of players on the album but still, the pounding drums and prowling bass crop up again and again and hammers home that twitchy, slightly paranoid feel of the record. The vocals are the standard boy-girl mix-up, at times dark and growling, at times yelping but never far away from a snappy backing line or (yet again) some repetitive phrasing.
They're signed to DFA but if you're expecting the sort of party-starting musical far that LCD Soundsystem or The Rapture then you're going to be sadly let-down. The eponymous album is a dark affair with the bass-line never giving up or allowing a moments respite. On a song like 'Don't Talk To Strangers' which comes across as one of the more upbeat tracks on the album, the lift in melody-line manages to stand the song out from the rest, which over the 16 tracks merge into one at times.
The act may be one that shies away from the media glare but with the music being of such a similar nature, there could do with being something else around them to make them noticeable or give people a better reason to give their songs a whirl. Musically, they're in a good place, straddling infectious dance music but borrowing from the early 1980s new-wave bands that are all the fashion these days. So there is a lot of good going on for Prinzhorn Dance School but they are competing with an awful lot of peers for some of the action. A slightly shorter album may have allowed them to make a more focussed impact but as it stands, it's a debut album that has its beating heart in all the right places.