Review: Gus Gus, Attention

The album retains the group’s knack for cybernetic pop hooks while exploring chill-out and hard, filter-filled trance.

Gus Gus, AttentionFollowing a successful foray into hook-fueled tech-pop (1999’s This Is Normal), Icelandic collective Gus Gus have regrouped (sans a few longtime members), re-signed (to electronic label Moonshine) and returned to the quirky rhythms and funk-fortified grooves of their debut, Polydistortion. Their third release, Attention, retains the group’s knack for cybernetic pop hooks (“Desire”) while exploring chill-out (the modest “Detention”) and hard, filter-filled trance (“I.I.E.”), all the while nodding its head to the retro beats of pioneers like the Sugarcubes and Kraftwerk. Tracks like the infectious “David” and “Unnecessary” (with its screaming electric guitars and nimble lyrics) are post-rock at its most delectably danceable and refreshingly unpretentious. Singer Urdur Hakonardottir displays a confident vocal diversity throughout the album, from her soulful performances on “Call of the Wild” and “Don’t Hide What You Feel” to her out-of-this-world delivery on “Your Moves Are Mine,” the sexiest of the disc’s 10 tracks. (Her orgasmic vocal, in fact, sounds as if it was lifted straight from a Giorgio Moroder disco nugget.) Though the title track and “Dance You Down” are a bit repetitive, Attention might very well be what Deee-Lite would sound like had they survived the ’90s.

Score: 
 Label: Moonshine  Release Date: August 20, 2002  Buy: Amazon

Sal Cinquemani

Sal Cinquemani is the co-founder and co-editor of Slant Magazine. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Village Voice, and others. He is also an award-winning screenwriter/director and festival programmer.

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