Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna
 8/10

Gang Gang Dance is surely one of the most unique and interesting bands in the world today. Shimmering like a semi-submerged sea snake stalking its prey, the Brooklyn quartet’s fourth album is best described in aloof metaphors. With a mind-bending amount of experimentation and total destruction of clichés and genres, Saint Dymphna proves that you can do almost anything and to hell what anyone else thinks of it! Gang Gang Dance is so far out of the mould that they’re up in space looking down on all of us with telescopes going “yeah, I’d rather stay up here”. Such an abstract sound and vision defies any preconceptions of both the band and their music, and this makes Saint Dymphna truly exciting to listen to as it gradually unfolds track by track. More a dance-oriented effort than their previous work, it shines with well-produced beauty and still reeks of their cult-favourite trademarks of tribal drumming, new wave synths and weirdo singing. Abstract electronic noise becomes a guitar dance track with Lizzie Bougatsos’ wonderfully unrestrained vocal taunts.

First track ‘Bebey’ segues seamlessly into single ‘First Communion’, a romping, stomping, squealing rock-out that shows this band does more than most could dream of. In fact, the press release says it all: “this stuff is smashing apart genre conventions in a way that few bands have been willing to experiment with”. It has been said that the record imbues “’70s Eno intricacy and ’00s Timbaland immediacy” and this much is evident in the melting pot of trip hop and middle eastern melody in ‘Blue Nile’. Extended intros are something they do much, with ‘Inners Pace’ an almost unnecessarily drawn-out sound escapade, but it finds its step half-way through. Later on Saint Dymphna begins to sound so unwashed and uninhibited that one loses grip of it and interest wains, but soon ‘House Jams’ picks up the pace with its effortlessly catchy and imaginative pop gleaming like a shining beacon of light. On this you’ll be forced to turn the volume all the way up and submit your conscious to this perfectly weird pop song, and it will never leave your mind again. Grime track ‘Princes’ is the only song that doesn’t seem to quite fit in, with rapping by MC Tinchy Stryder it really is immediately set apart and quite shocking, but in a good way. Still decorated with their famed sparse and scratchy guitar parts it is an odd listen but works to add another direction to their ever-expanding sound ventures. Who knows where they’ll end up next, but I’ll be watching.
Sarah