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There's a certain similarity between Vancouver's exclamation-point-loving You Say Party! We Say Die! and Seattle's United State of Electronica, both with their youthful energy, insistent dance rhythms, and group shout-along vocals, but where USE's sartorial and sonic styles are day-glo and glittery silver, YSP!WSD!'s are stark red and black. The album kicks off with an "overture" which sounds like the intro music to a Goth video game, complete with chanting vocals and church bells. Some ambitious, almost proggy elements show up in the epic 2-part "Stockholm Syndrome" and "Midnight Snack." The band shows a political side with "The Gap (Between the Rich and the Poor)." Though they're generally darker and angrier than USE, YSP!WSD! still has a very positive message of prevailing against adversity, as expressed with the songs "You Did It!" and "He!She!You!Me!They!We!Us!OK!" The band also pays a nice homage to their forebears the B-52s with "Jazz Crabs."
Of the band's two main vocalists, one is shouty and yelpy as you might expect, but the other has a fragile warbling quality like Chan Marshall of Cat Power (particularly on the midtempo "Love in the New Millenium" and final listed track "Don't Wait Up"), which is unexpected and provides a bracing vein of melancholy in the context of YSP!WSD!'s dance riot. I like this album much more than I expected to — it's solid all the way through, never flagging or sagging; the songs are way catchier and the rhythms way more infectious than other dance-punk stuff I've heard; and the band seals my goodwill with the hidden track "Repocamix Meow," an end-of-the-world love song that features, yes, a meowing keyboard part. These kids hit just the right balance between sweetness and snarl. (mike.08.06)
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