Towards the end of the post-punk era of 1978-1984 many of the original punks and post-punks moved onto the dance floor and into the pop charts. Bands like Human League, ABC, Heaven 17, Cabaret Voltaire, Scritti Politti, New Order, and even Gang Of Four, were releasing radio-friendly dance music. It sort of makes sense that today’s post-punk revivalists might want to make a similar move.

New York’s The Rapture took a step in this direction with their 2003 single ‘House Of Jealous Lovers’, a searing slab of disco-noise. Their latest release, ‘Pieces Of The People We Love’, takes the ‘Lovers’ sound, and reshapes it into an album’s worth of fabulously funky pop tunes, reminiscent of New York’s ‘mutant disco’ of the early 80s, the minimalist sound of bands like Bush Tetras and Liquid Liquid, and most of all, Talking Heads, in particular, their 1980 album ’Remain in Light’.

The song most likely to draw comparisons with Talking Heads is album centrepiece ‘Whoo! Alright Yeah… Uh Huh’. This song sets the sonic template for the album – prominent bass, flickering guitars, bleeping and burping synths and a multitude of beats – all intricately interwoven over a steady dance groove. Lyrically too, the song reveals the band’s ‘manifesto’ for the album. Or, should I say, its ‘anti-manifesto’.

People don’t dance no more
They just stand there like this
They cross their arms and stare you down
And drink and moan and diss

‘Pieces Of The People We Love’ turns its back on the serious indie-types and their ‘crap rock poetry’ and celebrates the pop song. Elsewhere the lyrics seem provocatively simplistic – from the ‘Na-na-na, Na-na-na’ of the title track to the ‘love/above, kept/wept’ rhymes of ‘The Devil’.

In ‘First Gear’ – a kind of synth-funk driving song – singer, Luke Jenner, delivers a series of dopey sex-as-car/driving images before the backing vocalists join him in the ‘My My My My Mustang Ford’ refrain. It’s deliriously silly, as is the orgasmic yelp in the aforementioned ‘Devil’, and the Tom Tom Club-like call-and-response vocals of ‘Whoo! Alright Yeah…’

But while the emphasis is on the beat rather than the brain, these songs aren’t exactly slick disco retreads. There’s enough noise and warped sentiment to give them a little edge. ‘The Sound’, for example, features a wall of clattering rhythms and buzzing electronics, while opening track ‘Don Gon Do It’ embellishes the bouncing synth-bass and singalong chorus with screeching guitars.

Another highlight is ‘Down For So Long’. Like ‘Whoo! Alright-Yeah…’ it pieces together twitching electronics with intricate rhythm sounds to create something that wouldn’t sound out of place on Talking Heads’ ‘Speaking in Tongues’. (Even its vague references to ‘the man upstairs’ echo the lyrical preoccupations of David Byrne.)

The less successful tracks are those that stray from the pop-funk model. ‘Calling Me’ is built around a slower, shuffling rhythm and a tune that lacks the celebratory feel of the rest of the album. Closing track ‘Live In Sunshine’ suffers from a similar problem, but manages to overcome the slow pace by projecting an appropriately ‘sunny’ outlook with its ringing guitars and gospel-flavoured backing vocals

‘Pieces Of The People We Love’ is the type of album that is becoming increasingly rare. It dares to bridge the gap between the ‘popular’ and the ‘alternative’, a reminder of the days when it was acceptable for a ‘serious’ band to play dance music.

An overview of some of the most interesting albums to have come my way in the last three months.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – The Letting Go

Recorded in Iceland, ‘The Letting Go’ sparkles with a crystalline clarity. Oldham’s hoarse warble is augmented by a string quartet and Dawn McCarthy’s backing vocals to beautiful effect. Tracks like ‘Cursed Sleep, ‘Love Comes To Me’ and ‘The Seedling’ already sound like classics. (4.5/5)

The Dears – Gang Of Losers

The Dears’ third album might not have the immediacy of ‘No Cities Left’, but it is a complex, ambitious and ultimately rewarding collection of songs. The lyrical themes are big and broad – love, fear, rejection, racism and forgiveness, while the music is almost cinematic in scope. For full review click here. (4/5)

Figurines – Skeleton

Scandinavia continues to produce quality pop music. This four piece sound a lot like Modest Mouse or The Shins but actually come from Denmark. All fuzzy guitar and power-pop hooks, the album’s highlights include ‘The Wonder’, ‘Ambush’ and ‘Silver Ponds’. (3/5)

Herbert – Scale

Highly regarded UK producer Matthew Herbert’s latest project combines disco beats, jazzy horns, sumptuous strings and blue-eyed soul singing. And if that isn’t enough, he also manages to throw in some political commentary. It’s an extravagantly ambitious album that effortlessly glides from torch song to dance groove and back again. (4/5)

The Knife – Silent Shout

‘Silent Shout’ is not a ‘happy’ record and it’s not always a pleasure to listen to, but The Knife have successfully created their own unique sound world, with its own languages, landscapes and characters. Many artists have such an aim, but few achieve it with such style and originality. For full review click here. (3.5/5)

Grant Lee Phillips – nineteeneighties

The ‘covers’ album concept is rarely a recipe for success. Phillips’ fourth solo is one such rarity. He pays tribute to the artists who inspired him – Pixies, Nick Cave, New Order, Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen and others – by reinterpreting some of their lesser known tunes. Somehow, he manages to retain the essence of the songs while making them sound exactly like Grant Lee Phillips. (3.5/5)

Scritti Politti – White Bread, Black Beer

‘White Bread Black Beer’ is Scritti’s most diverse album yet, a rich smorgasbord of sounds, from squelchy dub reggae to Beatlesque electro-folk. After three decades in the music business – from post-punk to new pop to hip hop – Green Gartside seems relaxed and comfortable and quite happy doing whatever comes to him. For full review click here. (3.5/5)

The Sleepy Jackson – Personality

The second Sleepy Jackson album is a dreamy, string-soaked affair reminiscent of the Beach Boys, Beatles and 70s AOR. Luke Steele’s meditations on God, the Devil and everything in-between are miniature pop-symphonies, laced with celestial horns and a chorus of angels. (4/5)

Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche

Stevens blesses us with another 74 minutes of music from last year’s ‘Illinois’ project. While presented as ‘Extras and Outtakes’, songs like ‘Dear Mr Supercomputer’, ‘Springfield’ and ‘Mistress Witch from McClure’ would make any ordinary artist’s A-list. Further proof of Stevens’ genius. (4/5)

Tapes ‘n’ Tapes – The Loon

This Minneapolis quartet has been described by some overenthusiastic music press as this year’s Arcade Fire. One of the few things they do share with the Canadian band is a knack for melding moods and styles – from the rockabilly shuffle of ‘Insistor’ to the scratchy guitar bursts of ‘Crazy Eights’. (3.5/5)

Thom Yorke – The Eraser

Thom Yorke’s debut solo album is an extension of the moody electronica of Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac’. It’s as cynical and pessimistic as one would expect, but it is also intimate and even bleakly beautiful. Highlights include ‘Black Swan’ and the grim ‘Harrowdown Hill’. (3.5/5)

It’s a brave band that calls their new album ‘Gang of Losers’. But then The Dears and their front man and songwriter, Murray Lightburn, are no strangers to taking risks or confronting adversity. The band formed in the mid-90s, but had virtually imploded by the time their debut album was released in 2000. Meanwhile, Lightburn was experiencing drink and drug problems. The band finally found success in 2004 with their second lp ‘No Cities Left’ . The album was a surprise hit, with the single ‘Lost in the Plot’ receiving significant airplay worldwide.

The Dears’ third album might not have the immediacy of ‘No Cities Left’, but it is a complex, ambitious and ultimately rewarding collection of songs. The lyrical themes are big and broad – love, fear, rejection, racism and forgiveness, while the music is almost cinematic in scope. The ‘Gang of Losers’ of the title refers to any group of marginalized individuals – a band, a race, a religion, a culture – with each song exploring or celebrating the idea of the ‘outsider’.

Every single one of us is getting massacred on a frozen path
Fever comes to wipe us out and scratch a name off of the list
You and I are on the outside of almost everything

Sings Lightburn in the title track. But like many of the songs here, it concludes with an acceptance or recognition of a simple truth –

We, we’ve got the same heart

This song is among a group of strong slower tracks. ‘Hate, Then Love’ is another. Over swirling mellotron and chiming guitars, Lightburn yearns for understanding –

We’ll find our place in this world
It’ll take all day and all night
We’ll find our place in this world
If it takes all day and all night

There has been much talk of the Britpop or Morrissey influence on The Dears music. While that might have been true of one or two songs on ‘No Cities Left’, there is little of such sound on ‘Gang of Losers’. Given the fussy arrangements and retro keyboard sounds on ‘Losers’ the influences are more 70s ‘prog’ than 90s pop.

Two minutes into ‘Fear Made The World Go Round’, for example, the song switches from a slowburning piano-based ballad to a guitar-crunching stomp. The atmospheric ‘I Fell Deep’ makes a similar transition, fading out as a very 70s guitar solo screeches into view.

The uptempo songs on ‘Losers’ are a mixed bunch, and there is nothing quite as radio-friendly as ‘Lost in the Plot’. ‘Death Or Life We Want You’ is built around slashing guitars, while ‘Whites Only Party’ is a peculiarly jaunty take on race relations. Elsewhere, Lightburn questions the value of success and stardom. From ‘Bandwagoneers’ –

Heaven knows that I’m a fake
Heaven knows that we’re all faking it
Everything we are

And opening track ‘Ticket To Immortality’ –

I hang out with all the pariahs
Everyone is almost done with me

This could all come across as quite bleak and heavy-handed, yet Lightburn and his band skillfully balance the light and dark. For every word of despair or angry sound there is a message of hope or burst of shimmering guitar. Over the simple piano and drums intro to ‘Ballad of Humankindness’ Lightburn tells us –

Well I thought that we all cared about peace
And I thought that we’d all cry about love and loss

And –

I can’t believe the vast amounts of people living on the streets
And I can’t believe I was almost one of them and I almost died

He berates himself for not offering to help those in need, but asks us to forgive him –

I’m gonna change, I’m gonna change, I’m gonna change

Like the best of any artistic endeavour – be it poetry, prose or pop – ‘Gang of Losers’ explores what it is to be human. It doesn’t reach any conclusions or offer any simple solutions, but examines the good and bad in everything.

With no obvious single to attract the attention of the music-buying public, it’s possible that this album will not find the audience it deserves. But this ‘Gang of Losers’ is worth getting to know. It is a richly textured work, meticulously arranged and passionately delivered. Losing never sounded so good.