The Automatic Automatic

The Automatic Automatic

Not Accepted Anywhere

[3/5] Bummer, another dance-punk record, right? Not so fast. Like most things the Brits invent, Americans popularize, then the Brits improve on, this record from Welsh four-piece the Automatic Automatic sounds like something familiar you’re hearing for the first time. At it’s best-like on the pounding rocket-blast ride of "Monster," a big hit in the U.K.-it puts the good times back into something that had lost it’s fun. Crazy rock ’n’ roll screams, gang harmonies straight out of a Freddie Mercury opera fantasy, oddball sci-fi sound effects, huge beats and ripping hi-hats hit all the usual marks, but on this album there’s a strange sense of the pastoral opening up the cracks in what’s usually an urban genre. What would a banging dance party throw-down in the fertile hills of Wales sound like? Now you know. (COLUMBIA) Luke O’Neil

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