For a band that was, in its leader James Murphy's opinion, designed to fail, LCD Soundsystem has done a pretty impressive job of beating the odds. Murphy – who initiated the originally one-man project solely as an opening attraction for the Rapture – has seen New York's fascination with disco-punk or punk-funk or whatever it's called these days rise, peak, and plummet, all the while probably having the strongest hand in deciding its fate. Whether, as part of the DFA production duo, whipping the Rapture's ragtag sound into tight, club-friendly shape or churning out noirish antihipster anthems under the LCD Soundsystem guise, Murphy obviously has a few cards up his sleeve. And his latest ace – which would initially seem to have arrived about two years late – the self-titled full-length debut from LCD Soundsystem, is more than likely part of his master plan for taking the genre to new, fascinatingly fun heights.

The first disc of the two-piece set (disc one is new; disc two compiles the 12-inch singles) immediately dumps punk-funk's pretentious leanings by proclaiming it party time with tracks like "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" and "Tribulations," electro-pop bubblers that show up Duran Duran and all of electroclash's casualties with head-nodding fervor, giving way to odes to everyone from the Beatles to Suicide. Most excitingly, though, as spirited and hedonistic as these and the rest of LCD Soundsystem's new tracks may be, they mark a stylistic shift away from the ironic tone set a couple years back with "Losing My Edge" and "Beat Connection," both featured on the second disc. Either way, Murphy's got a keen sense for melody, and while he's not primarily a songwriter, you wouldn't know it from this record. The first part of Murphy's reign may have pigeonholed him as strictly a dance-punk production man, but LCD Soundsystem, with its fresh, genre-jumping offerings and indispensable club-groove singles, proves he's lost anything but his edge. (Ken Taylor)

Wrangler Brutes
Zulu (Kill Rock Stars)

Two classic clichés: (1) punk is dead, and (2) punk is kicking a dead horse.

Well, punk "died" a long time ago, before most Gilman card-carriers were born, and in fact, even before the appearance of hardcore, with all its blistering speed, volume, and anger. Definitely well before New York's Born Against helped lead the United States into a hardcore revival in the late '80s, which to some was "kicking a dead horse," even if it was done well.

Sam McPheeters, the band's iconoclastic frontperson, couldn't stand it, this dead-horse kicking, and went about ruining punk for all his fans by starting Men's Recovery Project. A perverse group of experimentalists, deconstructionists, and performance artists, MRP broke every punk rule they knew. Yet punk was still being animated from the dead, and the horse kept getting up and trotting a little bit farther.

More than a decade after Born Against, Wrangler Brutes are reviving hardcore once again, and unsurprisingly, right up front is McPheeters. What's confusing about the Brutes is why this band of Born Against and Skull Control alumni would want to play in such a thing. Granted, they do it well, with 18 rabid attacks in the tradition of West Coast punk circa the mid-Reagan years. Musically, they're rooted in the SST and Alternative Tentacles catalogs, with more than a little Dead Kennedys thrown in on "Chaos Collides" in particular.

What one wonders is why they play it so straight. Crass might have said, "It ain't for revolution, it's just for cash," accusing the Brutes of milking their own legacy. Yet the Brutes may just be prescient, creating the next punk movement alongside fellow lifers such as Limpwrist and youngbloods like Wives. Then again, Crass also said, "Movements are expressions of the public will." So which is it? (Gabriel Mindel)

Various artists
Deep Space NYC Vol. 1 mixed by François K (Deep Space Media)

Twenty-five-year veteran DJ François Kevorkian's Deep Space night, Mondays at New York's Cielo, is one of the bright spots in a club scene that many bemoan as moribund. Listening to this hour-plus mix of house, dub, and any style of music that reclaims the word trance from the Virgin Megastore-approved mindless massive, it's easy to hear why.

François K is a legend who deserves attention not just for his history (DJ at Studio 54, remixer for everyone from Diana Ross to U2, founder of respected label Wave) but also for his still vibrant talent as a selector and DJ. While dub is sometimes seen as the soundtrack for stoners on the sofa, he realizes its true stature as a revolutionary approach to music that demands respect in all its forms. So, while Deep Space NYC Vol. 1 features some expected (but effective) inclusions like Jah Warrior's bass bin-testing "Heartical Dub" and his own driving, crashing collaboration with U-Roy, "Rootsman Dub," F.K.'s other selections range far afield. There are the fairly obvious inclusions of dub-influenced house tracks, but what really shows F.K.'s skills are his wanderings off the beaten path. It takes a special talent to program a sequence of techno from Jeff Mills, drum 'n' bass from Matrix and Fierce, bluesy rocksteady from the Skatalites, and electro from Chicken Lips, then mix them together perfectly with a deft hand on the E.Q. Every DJ likes to brag about taking you on a journey – François K delivers. (Peter Nicholson)

… And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
Worlds Apart (Interscope)

A measure of a band is how they handle their success: they either invest in more of the same or take risks and put resources toward research and development. Depending on which of these is more important to fans, ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead's fourth album, Worlds Apart, is either an overreaching departure from Source Tags and Codes (Interscope), fueled by the ego-boosting acclaim for that album, or a masterfully crafted progression that is emotionally engaging and socially aware.

Worlds Apart is the score for a domestic rock opera, filled not only with the classic human struggles of life and death but also with critiques of the current media unreality of televised war and apathy-inducing materialism, which are rarely dramatized with this level of mature insight. For example, "A Classic Arts Showcase" portrays suburbanites' distance from the suffering seen on TV: "Nights on Kirkwood so serene / Far from the sirens and the screams … Here I am comfortable / In arm's reach of the black remote."

Trail of Dead's gigantic guitar arrangements are in top form, but Conrad Keeley's un-American Idol voice is boldly moved to the front of the mix, showcased by piano and strings, while songs are tied together by samples of children laughing and birds chirping. Keeley's lyrics are explicitly topical, especially on the title track – "Look at those cunts on MTV / With their cars, and cribs, and rings and shit / Is that what being a celebrity means?" – but the lines are delivered with enough irony to make them feel like they're not being shoved down your throat. In our bubble by the bay, most of us have connected the dots between America's consumer culture and the rise of terrorism, but with so much red in the States, I'm not going to fault anyone for delivering an intelligent analysis of our cultural plight. Granted, Worlds Apart doesn't seem to expand upon relistening as much as Source Tags does, but its potential to spread awareness among the kids who just want to punch and shove at concerts makes up for its lack of depth. (Keith Axline)