The slow, uncurling body of opening track ‘Glass Jar’ sets out the parameters for the New York band’s fifth record. It lasts over eleven minutes – becoming a fusion of dance and improv jazz aesthetics – where the percussion and keyboards fall like intermittent showers. And wailing, moving and winding through the endless rhythms is the inimitable vocal of singer Liz Bougatsos. The album continually flirts with a primal passion – various ethnic qualities merging with New York dance – making for a band with a unique voice.

‘Adult Goth’ has Bougatsos wavering in a meditative intonation across a sturdy beat and buzzing synths, the waves of sounds displaying a filmic quality in atmospheric terms. The album continually moves the posts for each track, building off new beats, switching the ambience. Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor croons softly upon the warped soul heard on ‘Romance Layers’, the semi-funked beat and bass-line joined by swirling synth lines and distant callings. ‘Mindkilla’ is a frenetic and majestic turn. Heavy chords push and pull, a twitchy electronic beat ticks and clicks and Bougatsos comes across like The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson, whining out the words from the ‘Hush Little Baby’ lullaby. The giant beat that opens ‘Sacer’, a tribute to the band’s friend, artist Dash Snow (Sacer was his tag), remains undeterred as picking guitar notes, bending keys and an underlying reverie dance around its unmovable course.

With such a controlled form of mayhem, melody and freedom (along with the varying interludes between tracks) the album is an experience rather than a set of songs, making for one hell of a ride. Bowlegs can confidently pronounce ‘Eye Contact’ as Gang Gang Dance’s finest record yet. We can also, without hesitance, declare it as one of 2011′s finest.  -David Stone-