CD Reviews - ‘It It, Shout Out Out Out Out

'It It - Hang Out (Old Life)

Local popsters ’It It have (perhaps unwittingly) provided their own useful summation of their band in the form of the fifth song on this lovely EP. “Something Awesome, Not Boring” couldn’t be more accurate in describing the troupe. In a brisk 12 minutes, the quartet fire off five jittery and propulsive pop blips on this disc. And I’m not trying to be insulting saying that it feels longer than a dozen minutes. These songs feature such a tasty tangle of guitar tones, some nice shifting time signatures and a nice sheen of reverb and dissonance that it’s easy to get lost in the pop that’s more engaging than full-length albums three times the length. All in all, these five slices of fun are things I plan on hanging out with quite often as the weather warms up around here.
—Bill Stuart

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‘It It
(with Azeda Booth, Ghosts and Rooney & The Minglers as part of CFUV’s 25th Anniversary concert series)
7pm Sunday, March 29
Sunset Room, 1810B Store
Tickets $10 • cfuv.uvic.ca

Shout Out Out Out Out - Reintegration Time (Normals Welcome)

Sounds like the party is over for Shout Out Out Out Out. After the success of 2006’s Not Saying/Just Saying, the Edmonton dance-punk outfit has woken up on a dirty floor strewn with empty beer bottles with a pounding headache and a strange chick while a collections guy from Long and McQuade is banging on the door wanting payments for all those drum kits and synths they financed—at least, that’s the impression one gets when listening to their new album, Reintegration Time. With eight dancey, vocoder-heavy, synthed-out party-remorse anthems sandwiched between two epic instrumentals and song titles like the two-parter “How Do I Maintain,” “Bad Choices” and “In the End It’s Your Friends” (who will fuck you over, apparently), this album is one hell of a comedown. There’s a couple great guest tracks on here, too, with San Serac appearing on “One Plus Two Plus Three” and fellow Edmontonian Cadence Weapon lending some rhymes to “Coming Home” (which also makes a brief appearance on his excellent pay-what-you-want downloadable mixtape Separation Anxiety, but that’s a whole other review). If reintegrating sounds this dancerrific, bring on the songs about backstabbing friends and poor life choices.

—Amanda Farrell

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Shout Out Out Out Out
(with Longwalkshortdock and Modified Fatso)
9pm Friday, March 27
Sugar, 858 Yates
Tickets $16
250-920-9950