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By John Norris

We’re not saying there’s a connection or anything, but only minutes after Brooklyn’s dance punk stalwarts !!! finished their recent headlining set at the Williamsburg Waterfront – a gig intended to celebrate this week’s release of the band’s fourth album, Strange Weather, Isn’t It? – the skies darkened, then opened up for another summer storm.  Fortunately, the forecast seems to be a bit brighter for !!!’s latest release.

And as we find out on this week’s Face Time, a conversation with !!!’s Nic Offer and Mario Andreoni, it was not meteorological matters but rather the uncertainties of life and the inevitability of change that inspired that rather foreboding new album title. Certainly !!! (Chk Chk Chk) has had its share of change since its last release, 2007’s Myth Takes, from the departure of several band members, to the sudden, tragic death last year of former drummer Jerry Fuchs. All of which might make something of a downer of a record. But while Strange Weather, Isn’t It? may mine some dark places, it is also, by most accounts, the band’s brightest and most – here’s a word guaranteed to repel some – “accessible” to date.  

How do Offer and Andreoni feel about having made a record that’s being described as “pop”? They weigh in on that topic with us, as well as Berlin, the enduringly influential city where !!! wrote much of the new record.  We talk about the eye popping new video for “AM/FM”, directed with characteristic seizure-inducing élan by their pals Black Dice; about the album’s first official single, “The Most Certain Sure” which Offer wrote as a celebration of being alone; and finally, energized by the new release and looking at months on the road in support of it, Mario and Nic talk about how long they might want to keeping doing this thing called music, and their thoughts on their dance-punk compatriot James Murphy’s decision to pull the plug on LCD Soundsystem.  Plus we throw in the “AM/FM” video, cause we’re nice like that.

So check out Strange Weather, Isn’t It?  - rate it and write a review – and enjoy this week’s Face Time with !!!.

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