!!!

!!!

Since 1996 · United States

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Myth Takes (2007)

Myth Takes tightens !!!'s sprawling, percussion-heavy dance-punk into a more focused set of songs without losing the live-band physicality that set them apart from more strictly electronic acts. "Must Be the Moon" rides a loose, conga-driven groove under Nic Offer's half-sung, half-muttered vocal, treating repetition and rhythm as the song's actual hook. "All My Heroes Are Weirdos" pushes the same idea into a sparer, more skeletal arrangement. The album makes the band's underlying argument plainly: that a band built around guitars and drums could function as genuine dance music rather than a rock approximation of it.

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Myth Takes · 2007

!!! formed in Sacramento in the mid-1990s among a loose group of musicians who also played in the related band Out Hud, with singer Nic Offer's manic, half-spoken vocal style becoming the group's most immediately identifiable feature. Their sound combines dance-punk's angular guitar and bass with a much deeper commitment to actual dance-music structure — long, percussion-heavy grooves indebted as much to disco and house as to any punk lineage.

Myth Takes (2007) is generally considered the fullest realization of that approach, extending the band's live-heavy, percussion-forward sound across a tighter set of songs than their earlier, more sprawling releases. !!! have continued recording and touring steadily since, maintaining an unusually large and rotating live lineup built to reproduce the density of their studio percussion arrangements. The band's commitment to actually functioning as dance music, rather than just referencing it, set them apart from many of their more strictly rock-oriented dance-punk peers.