I remember being really excited for the release of The Physical World when that was to be the new, long-awaited second album by Death from Above 1979, back in 2014. Looking back, it was a bit of a bandwagon move. I didn’t follow the band during their original run together between 2001 and 2006, although I recall my sister singing ‘Black History Month’ a whole bunch. It was a single, she must have heard it somewhere. Years later I sort of fell into the sort of myth-like quality behind the duo. Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler made and released You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine in 2004, eventually fell out with each other and split up a couple years later. That album was their only album for a long time, looked like it would only ever be their sole LP. Along the way, a band like Royal Blood – another duo made of a bass guitarist and drummer – showed up, and even though I never properly listened to them, I’d still think, “Death from Above did it first.” So when The Physical World was announced, it was like, “Yeah, now time to show ’em all how it’s done.” I had to do some learning. I did some homework via listening to You’re a Woman… in the lead-up to The Physical World‘s release.

‘Turn It Out’ starts the album off, and damn, what an opener. Soon as Keeler’s bass guitar comes thundering in, squeals and all in between, alongside Grainger’s drums, my face is scrunched up and my head is banging. If ever I’m walking down the street and the song comes on in the headphones, I need people to get out of the way – while this song is on, my head is down and I’m charging to where I need to get to. I think that’s helped by the fact that “I’m on the move, mother” is the lyric for what I guess is the chorus. Guessing, because it’s a very short one. There aren’t a lot of words in this song in general, looking at it. Maybe seven lines delivered by a wailing Grainger, all to do with a “I’d like to sit and chat, but time’s of the essence and I’ve got somewhere I need to go” feeling. But what it lacks in lyrical content is made up for by the bass guitar riffage and pummeling rhythms delivered in the two-and-a-half-minute length. The bass line sharply switches between low and high notes. Grainger’s pounding on the tom-toms. Those climbing bass runs during the “chorus” are killer. Everything’s an onslaught, with no time to relax until both members strike their respective instruments at the song’s end. The cymbals are left sizzling. It’s a spicy opening track.

Some songs on You’re a Woman… I’d come across already before digging into it. The video for ‘Romantic Rights’ would pop up now and again on MTV2. I once watched the video for ‘Blood on Your Hands’ out of the corner of my eye. It got to the part where the music stops and the little waiting-room-ish interlude begins after. I didn’t know what was going on. But a few listens to the whole song in the album’s context secured it as a strong, strong favourite of mine. And I owned Saints Row 2. ‘Sexy Results’ was on the game’s soundtrack. As a whole, I enjoyed the album quite a bit, hearing it that first time in the summer of 2014. It’s not one I return to all that often now. I think I have to be in the mood to hear some songs about get-togethers, relationships and the like set to thick bass lines. I don’t find myself in that kind of mood all that often. I’d say You’re a Woman… is something of a young man’s album. It’s all in the name too. I’m not the machine this album is probably aimed for. These things I just have to come to terms with.