Innerpartysystem – Innerpartysystem
Filed under: Album Reviews by Chris4 Comments »
Innerpartysystem sit somewhere past Pendulum, in the direction of ‘Dance’ on the musical spectrum. They share a fair few elements, (especially with ‘In Silico’) but light on the drum ‘n’ bass, and leant towards more synthy, dance-centric tunes. With a generous helping of 80’s electro thrown in too. Now, I’m no expert on dance music. In fact, apart from a few forays into the more indie side of things, it begins and ends with Pendulum. Generally, if it makes the charts and has ‘dance’ slapped on it, I disregard it. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to look far for Innerpartysystem. The video for ‘Don’t Stop’ appeared on Crowdsurfer.net’s main page (presumably courtesy of our head honcho/website monkey Liam) and, one listen later, I went off and bought the album. I’m glad I did. However, it is not without its problems. Even though it’s still great.
This is going to be hard to explain…
Deep breath. Here we go…
It’s a bit of a mixed one, really. Some tracks, like ‘Die Tonight Live Forever’, ‘Don’t Stop’, and ‘Obsession’ really stand out and seem fresh compared to pretty much everything else around at the moment. Even some of the weaker tracks are not without merit, for example ‘This Empty Love’, or ‘Home’ are only weak compared to other tracks here. This is usually a positive thing, but the fact remains that it’s hard to take in a full album. After a while (coincidentally, around ‘This Empty Love’, track 7 out of 12) a certain repetitiveness sets in and the momentum built up is lost somewhere. A revolution can only last so long, it seems, and here it just about lasts for the first half of the album. After the aforementioned 7th track, only ‘This Town Your Grave’ really stands out amid the same-styled vocals and beats.
But, I’m sure this sounds much worse than I mean it to.
Yes, it’s repetitive. Yes, every track is cut from a similar cloth; but this only becomes a problem if you’re listening to the album as a whole. In some sort of ‘shuffling’ situation (avoiding that bastard ‘random’ word), say… at a party or on your mp3 player, then every song on here will stand up to scrutiny. When enjoyed as separate entities, each of the parts improve. It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s how I saw it. You’re free to disagree. Obviously.
Something else I think it worth mentioning is the identity that exists on every note of the album. Every song on offer here is immediately recognisable as an Innerpartysystem song. Let’s put this in context… I tend to listen to music the way one might flick through the channels on a TV= idly and without too much notice being paid until something catches the attention. Skipping through my music collection currently, and landing on an IPS song is akin to catching the briefest of glimpses of yellow skin on a cartoon character. Immediately, you know it’s The Simpsons. Similarly, you’ll know just as quickly that you’re listening to IPS.
Musically, the only real similarities I can dredge up would be Pendulum, and even that is a long shot. Or The Cooper Temple Cause, but again only minimally. It’s inventive, well-produced and contains some of the best dance songs you’ll hear in a while. It’s just a pity about the self-induced repetitiveness.
I may be ill-informed, I may be rambling incoherently and I may be completely off the mark…but my guess is if you like music, you’ll find something to like on here. It isn’t perfect…but it can be prettier for it’s flaws. And ‘Don’t Stop’ is quality.
Rating: 
