Canadian two-piece, Death From Above’s third studio album is slick – real slick. This is in stark contrast to the blatant unhinged punk spirit of their 2002 cranking Lo-Fi debut: You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine.
Lead single Freeze Me is pure pop masquerading as rock. The piano solo pre-chorus is outrageously tasteful, a reminder that in during the band’s hiatus from 2004 to 2012 drummer Jesse F Keeler ruled the electro world as one-half of MSTRKRFT with the aforementioned piano sprawl heavily reminiscent of the one that drives the 2009 hit Heartbreaker that also introduced the world to John Legend.
Title track Outrage Is Now is a grandiose rock opera that builds off buzzing bass brutality: a dastardly conspiracy masterminded by a fuzzed out bass guitar and a effected kick drum with the anti-polemic chorus: “Outrage, outrage, I am outta rage, maybe it’s my age but I can’t see the clear lines”.
Then there is Moonlight and Statues that may homage to the band’s punk rock roots but are indulgent and seem to lack the access of the aforementioned tracks. Death From Above 1979 have successfully kickflipped down 10 ten stairs but crashed into the camera guy only moments after landing.
