For those who don’t know, Ratatat is a couple of guys who like to play electric guitar and synth, and combine the two into relatively downtempo electronic music. Their first album, which was self titled, was a fun listen, pretty even throughout. What jumped out at me was their sound – just the general tone of the music is pretty cool in kind of a Flash-era Queen/Daft Punk way which I really dug. Then their second album, Classics, was more of the same. More of exactly the same. It was pretty damn striking how little was different between the two albums, and that was a huge disappointment.
Their third LP, cleverly titled LP3 (Hey! Yeah! I get it! Exactly like Portishead did earlier this year when their third album was called Third! Exactly the same! Sooo clever! Ha ha! Cleverness!), is thankfully a progression, and if you like midtempo electronic music, I have a hard time seeing why you wouldn’t like this album. As opposed to being just guitar-onica, this uses more straight techno influences as well as some latin spice thrown in (“Shempi” could come from a Kinky album, if it was a little faster and a little softer). I mean, two of the tracks are Spanish words, for chrissakes. But really, none of these terms apply to every track on the album, and I think that’s the biggest step for Ratatat: a more varied approach. Classics, and even Ratatat to an extent, was downright boring because it was so one-note. This keeps it varied.
“Brulée” has a bit of a Margaritaville tinge, if you can believe it. “Mumtaz Khan” has some definite Middle Eastern and Indian influence, with a smidge of Reggae thrown in. I really think Ratatat is at the top of its game here; its influence-mixing is really great to hear, but that’s the one problem I have with Ratatat that I don’t think is possible to fix. Even at what I think is their peak, they’re not good enough to rise above their influences, which is really the mark of a great band. Though their sound is unique, it’s really on more of a horizontal level, as in, using influences to be different on the same level, than on a vertical level, which is using influences to create something that goes beyond.
I think this is as good as Ratatat gets, which is very good, but not great. But hey guys, prove me wrong with LP4 (which is actually the fucking name of the next fucking album, completely fucking serious), why don’t you?
I Ate My DVD Collection 