Shout Out Out Out Out: Reintegration Time
Dance-rock-band checklist time: obnoxious name—check. Song titles that read like Vice headlines (“Guilt Trips Sink Ships,” “Bad Choices,” “In The End It’s Your Friends”)—check-check. Voice-processing software: checkmate. That said, Reintegration Time, the second album by Canada’s Shout Out Out Out Out, is ambitiously laid out, with lengthy, mostly instrumental tracks and a leisurely sense of pace. Too bad the electro grooves don’t offer much, nor does the ornamentation. (It isn’t a good sign when a dance-rock album’s highlight is a freaking drum solo—see “How Do I Maintain Pt. II.”) S.O.O.O.O. isn’t much better when dabbling in hip-hop (“Coming Home” features a clumsy guest rap by MC and fellow Canadian Cadence Weapon), and the Nintendo-goblin voice the group wrings from its processors grates not because it’s harsh and futuristic, but because it’s as cloyingly cutesy as the Care Bears.