Dance or Die

The room fades to black. A faint hum from the speakers rises to a whisper and slowly ascends into a tantalizing, yet ominous synth-set aria. The beat drops. The track gets hot. You're left with two choices: dance or die.

Christ's favorite crunk-punk-rap-rocking B-boy crew Family Force 5 is back for a second "you got" serving of funk, but not without a significant amount of dissent. Gone are the rap heavy dance fests about Mullets and Scott Stapp. The sense of absurdity and witty rap verses that made Business Up Front/Party In The Back the ideal guilty pleasure, have been traded in for far darker grooves and riffs that still invoke rabid dancing within, but this time around they're unbelievably serious about l'art du danse...and wearing space baseball pants while doing it.

Dance or Die sounds like the soundtrack to an 80's Halloween dance party. In fact, it sounds like the best cheesy 80's horror movie that was never made (though Monster Squad doesn't have much competition).

Imagine that it's All Hollow's Eve. The camera rushes through the woods and up to a bright red barn in the middle of the country. After 360 panning the perimeter, the camera bursts through the doors, the lights go out, the Dance or Die graphics bleed onto and off the screen. The scene of the party begins.

Soul Glow Activatur, Fatty, Crouton, Nadaddy, Chap Stique, and dancer Xanadu take the stage dressed in black suits and ties, aviators and black and white dunks. The self-titled track starts off in what sounds like a normal synth-sexual song from the era. A man (obviously play by Kevin Bacon) dressed as Dracula glides over to an angelic face and starts to strip away her hesitations with a smoothness on the floor only previously heard about in myth. The song kicks into second gear, Croutons thumping backbeat pumps new life into the already anxious crowd, unleashing everyone's inner dance demons and turning the scene into a frenzy of ecstasy.

Enough cinematic glory that never was, fast forward back to the future and the actual CD. Following suit is "Get Your Back Off The Wall," an earthquake educing crunk jam that basically takes anything Bone Crusher has ever done and dumps all over it. This gem proves that white boys do in fact, have soul.

Other upbeat tracks like "Rip it Up" and "D-I-E 4 Y-O-U" are sure to cause listeners to attempt their best pop-and lock, but nothing brings it quite like "Fever," which rains dance funk on the wanton.

Lead vocalist Soul Glow Activatur's vocals have almost entirely eliminated rapping, yet he somehow makes it work. His distorted singing voice shines on the slower tracks "How In The World" and "The First Time," which still have enough kick in them to instigate a solid two step and or side to side.

Closing out the trek through the unknown waters of grimy Southern dance rock are "Wake The Dead" and "Radiator. "Wake The Dead" takes us back to that Halloween dance theme, with a distorted riff that's tuned like the latter half of My Chemical Romance's "Mamma," and feels like the point where the rest of the monster heathens lurking around the dance floor meet up with Dracula and embark upon an epic Thrilleresque dance routine.

"Radiator" sounds like a cross between Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People." With a dark industrial sound and a message about bringing the gift of dance for either God and or space, it's easily the most exciting moment of the album.

And that's exactly where it ends. FF5 take the listener on this epic journey of dance and discovery, all the while reinvisioning themselves in the process. Literally, God only knows what this band will do next, but consider us excited...and ready to d-a-n-c-e.