“Baby/ Is this love for real?/ Let me in your arms to feel/ The beating of your heart baby.”
“In and out/ I’m dancing/ In and out/ I’m dancing/ In your head/ I’m in your head.”

I’m back. And I got the good stuff.

Because there was this dude in some hardcore metal band, and obviously he was unfulfilled (because how can hardcore metal possibly be fulfilling to somebody with sparks of pop genius in his veins like these?). But one day he was sulking with those piercings and black clothes when he heard music in his mind like nothing he’d ventured to play before. He tried to push it back and focus on more metallic concerns, like pain and anger and all that jazz, but those chords kept bouncing away, damn well demanding his attention. So finally he listened. And he was changed.

“Wow,” he thought, allowing a smile to finally creep across his face. “Why am I spending all my precious time making bad music, when I could be creating fabulously melodramatic, funk-punk anthems that make people leap around in joy and put me on repeat play?”

No reason at all, I tell you.

The neon of the cover boded well: these are such deliciously bouncing affairs, I actually can’t choose between them. See, ‘Dance Party Plus’ may try to fake you out with chunky opening chords, but wait just a moment and you’ll be rewarded with the most joyfully layered chorus, all swooping insistence and hypnotic repetition. And then oh! That mind-blowing final breakdown with divine chanting and upper harmony. I swoon.

But from the first sweet vocals of ‘Beating Hearts Baby’ and the joyful rawk overlay, with all that jaunty organ effect and frenetic drumming, well, they take me there too. Here it’s all about the verse- skipping along with infectious joy and overdrawn vocals that are almost Alien Ant Farm-esque in drama and tone. But in a good way. Befuddling. And then they go do the ‘Up a key!’ final chorus repetitions! Why would I resist?

No reason at all.
This is energy, vibrant enthusiasm and skilled maneuvering.
Go worship