Track Listing

1. Sleep Deprivation
2. I Got This Down
3. It's The Beat
4. Hustler
5. Tits And Acid
6. I Believe
7. Hotdog
8. Wooden
9. Love
10. Scott

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6290 in Music
• Released on: 2007-06-18
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
While Attack Decay Sustain Release is the debut album by Simian Mobile Disco, James Ford and James Shaw have been here before – before SMD, they were one half of shambling, psychedelic indie outfit Simian. On that band's demise, Ford and Shaw fostered something as a reputation as remixers and producers, tweaking knobs for The Klaxons and Arctic Monkeys. Here, though, they return to the artist's chair in their own right - and if you were one of those people complaining they couldn't hear the 'rave' in new rave, Attack Decay Sustain Release should make you very happy. Tracks like "Hustler" and "Tits & Acid" are unmistakably pitched for the dancefloor, layered constructions of wobbly bass, ecstatic analogue synthesiser washes, and rave blips, presented with a muscle reminiscent of their Parisian rave compatriots Justice. "It's The Beat", featuring Ninja from The Go Team, takes a 'keep it simple, stupid' approach to lyrical ingenuity: "You know it's the one for the treble/Two for the bass/It's the beat". And while in general, there's few signs of any remaining indie sensibilities, "Love" –- featuring guest vocals from Barry Dobbin of Clor – features the sort of choppy punk-funk bass that should keep the Rapture fans happy. An impressive reinvention. –-Louis Pattison

CD Description
This is the debut album from James Ford and Jas Shaw, otherwise known as Simian Mobile Disco. Alongside acts such as Justice, Sebastian and The Klaxons, this duo make dance music that your average indie kid wouldn't be ashamed to dance to.As a result, this album is a treat for fans of acts as diverse as The Chemical Brothers and the Arctic Monkeys. Includes the tracks 'The Hustler' and 'I Believe'.

Customer Reviews

Attack Decay Sustain Release
I think it is important not to compare this album with the Justice album; whilst both share common influences, they are very different at the core. Attack Decay Sustain Release is more vocal and it's beats more progressive. My personal favourites are It's The Beat, Hustler & Wooden - These tracks sound amazing live and I expect It's The Beat to be very popular this summer.
My only disappointment with the album has been the track 'I believe' - It's good, but not really fitting with the rest of the album.

Justice fans may find it hard to fully appreciate this album, but I would still highly recommend it.

An instant classic.
This CD has been receiving a lot of good reviews in the press recently so I decided to give it a go. I am not disappointed. This is a brilliant collection of dance tunes, 10 in all. Back in the day, many bands released 10 track CDs because they didn't bother overloading them with filler-dross deadweight. Every song here is instantly memorable and has been well crafted. Ironically, this CD reminds me of precisely the kind of stuff that made me up sticks from the dance floor as a student and retreat to the bar until the DJ sorted himself out but I love it now. It has a more refined feel to it than 90s dance music and is propped up by beats that drag you into the maelstrom that is SMD. Prior to this I had been a fan of Air, Royksopp and all that Euro sky gazing malarkey but this mob are not in the same vein as any of that. Admittedly there are a couple of laid back moments on the CD but they just wipe the tables in the fag breaks between courses. Love it, recommend it unreservedly.

Half a true classic dance album here , then decay rather than sustain sets in.
Apparently Simian Mobile Disco are part of a new rave movement but I cannot clarify that as I have absolutely no idea what it is. What I happily can clarify is that DJ/producers James Ford and Jas Shaw have produced a definitive dance album that plays as an album rather than as a DJ set.
SMD emerged from the detritus of iffy indie outfit Simian and James Ford has an Artic Monkeys album -"My Favourite Worst Nightmare" - on his producing C.V. and its clear from first track the supple and spongy rhythms of "Sleep Deprivation" that the duo have assimilated influences and genres along the way as Attack Decay Sustain Release permeates techno, hip hop, acid house, soul and minimal rock elements into a unrelenting mish mash of styles and beats.
I hear elements of Daft Punk ( them again) , Suicide ,Renegade Soundwave, Jean Michel Jarre( just listen to the way some of the background keyboards and textures swish and swoop like "Oxygene" era Jarre), more ambient influences like The Orb and definitely traces of mad as balloons dance monsters Eon.
The albums first half is just a stupendous unremitting phalanx of jabbing keyboards , pummelling beats and juddering rhythms that speak to the hips in code. You meanwhile are powerless -you have to obey those coded commands and move. "I Got This Down" will have you getting it down so quickly you could break the sound barrier. " It's The Beat" explains "It's The Beat" rather unnecessarily , as it's scuzzy rhythms, dot dash backing and scything acid house bleeps and bips pirouette over a relentless fervent piano and strident exhorting vocals. "Hustler" is a reworked version of an earlier incarnation and has a giddily elastic keyboard line and sassily cool vocals .
The album loses momentum after this which is a shame as it s shaping up to be an absolute stormer."Tits And Acid" exists purely as a series of frantic blips and beeps rather than having them as a minor part of the track. "I Believe" Is the sort of utopian love everything track so prevalent of the nineties club scene but its a come down track , a very good one mind, and should have been at the end of the album. "Hotdog" is just functional dance music and though "Wooden" has some invigorating layered keyboards it doesn't take them anywhere memorable. "Love" has splendidly fat bass but allays it to shuffling percussion where earlier it thumped till you bruised , and the vocal is just plain annoying ."Scott" is all over the place with ramshackle sounds , odd vaudeville interludes and perplexing key changes. If it's meant to sound gloriously wilful and experimental it fails .Its just a gaudy mess.
There is half a brilliant album here , as good as anything I have heard in dance music for a long time. That it loses momentum is frustrating but ultimately not too surprising. SMD have gone for a range of moods and emotions and allowed their various influences to absorb into the music and for that we should be congratulating them . This approach has ironically robbed then of the chance of making a true classic dance album .If they had indeed sustained the attack who knows how crushingly superb this album could have been.