Single review: innerpartysystem - Don’t Stop

So, here’s the first proper single from Pennsylvanian techno-rockers innerpartysystem, “Don’t Stop”, and you know what? It’s actually pretty good.

It’s easy to be cynical; the electroclash/nu-rave/whatever-you-want-to-call-it “movement” has thrown up plenty of novelty acts and one-hit-wonders so far, but I’ve not heard much that has struck me as having the potential to deliver an entire album of tunes that engage on their own merits as opposed to being considered as part of some nebulous media-defined scene. innerpartysystem, however, have produced a damned good single here. “Don’t Stop” has a tough electronic texture with plenty of bleak power, a strong hooky chorus and something to say.

In fact, I’d be tempted to classify innerpartysystem as an industrial band rather than anything else, because they remind me a lot of Skinny Puppy. Granted, they’re not as savagely nihilistic, but this seamless soundscape that captures rock dynamics with electronic instrumentation sounds like a coherent whole rather than a clumsy cut-and-shut genre-mash. “Don’t Stop” is a song rather than an experiment.

And it’s timely, as well: a frustrated rant against celebrity obsession, reality programming and a corrupt media industry. I’m too cynical to believe it’s got any chance of changing anything – hell, you could even argue it’s contributing to the problem, if you wanted to really go overboard – but “Don’t Stop” is youth anger cranked up to eleven with an old-new sound and a musical hook. If innerpartysystem can produce a full album to match it, I’ll be pretty impressed.

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