Album Review: Does It Offend You, Yeah – You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into

The first time I saw their name, I thought it was a joke at the expense of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. But no, these kids from Reading are for real, and they mean business. Does It Offend You, Yeah? has all the smart ass, thrashing brashness of the dearly departed Test Icicles and all the neon-clad, retro-spiked, unabashedly cocky dance floor appeal of the Klaxons, all of which basically means they’re this year’s model. It also makes them substantially better than most new bands. And their LP You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into is one of the smartest, most danceable, and flat-out best albums of the year, bar none.

How can one count the many levels of white-hot awesomeness that await you on this album? It’s an album made for strobe lights, for dancing with abandon, for better living through chemistry. It’s an homage to the Atari era, but without all those silly Reaganomics (and bad hair). Two of my favorite tracks, “Dawn of the Dead” and the fantastically named “Being Bad Feels Pretty Good” legitimately sound as though they could have been plucked from any of the John Waters flicks any member of the Brat Pack starred in, breathlessly and synth-ishly wonderful. But Does It Offend You, Yeah? has been very clever indeed, because the album doesn’t ever dwell too long in the 80s, sticking around just long enough to nail it and then move on.

“Attack of the 60 FT Lesbian Octopus” could be the theme music to a late-60s b-movie, and not just because of its name. Frenzied keyboarding meets oodles of distortion in a joyous union. And then, the gears shift again, into the undeniable romp known as “Let’s Make Out,” the new favorite song of amorous folk everywhere. It’s in my regular rotation. After all, who couldn’t fall in love the supremely romantic line “I can’t control myself/when I see you there’s no one else/when I get down all by myself/you’re the one that I think about.” Ah, let’s hear it for 21st century romance.

If you’ve been feeling like something’s been missing from your life lately, like you need a little spice, you might just want to try Does It Offend You, Yeah? on for size. They’ve got all the hellfire and damnation you could ask for, in a beautifully acid green-covered package. Which, by the way, if you visit their official site and order the album, you'll get a free live EP. Sounds like a good deal to me.