Sound Of Silver

For a future-disco hero, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy is unusually self-conscious. Before you hear a single kick-drum sample on his excellent second album, Murphy seems to be intentionally setting the bar low, giving the massive, clattering dance-floor killer that opens the disc the awesomely pathetic title of "Get Innocuous."

The first LCD track, 2002's "Losing My Edge," was an anthem for aging hipsters everywhere; Silver's first single, "North American Scum," is about the existential crisis of being American at this particular historical moment. Even though it's difficult to imagine Murphy ever exhorting, "Everybody dance now," musically he owes a huge debt to house-music masters like Clivilles and Cole. Putting aside the world-weary Bowie-meets-Byrne vocals, the bulk of the tracks -- "Innocuous," "Us v Them," "Sound of Silver" -- could be lost late-Eighties dance classics. But somehow it all holds together as an album (the New Wave-y tunes "Someone Great" and "All My Friends" help), and by the end, ex-indie-rocker Murphy comes full circle, returning to his roots with the Pavement-meets-Morrissey comic lament "New York I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down."