css / albums

You've gotta love the way Brazilian art rock/dance-pop act CSS kicks off their 2006 release Cansei de Ser Sexy -- which is Portuguese for "Tired of Being Sexy" -- with a rousing chant of "CSS sucks!" That self-effacing quality walks the line between high-art irony and unabashed silliness -- slyly setting the tone for a sensual and quirky album. The song "Artbitch" finds singer Lovefoxxx cattily shouting that she's an artist who only shows her work where there's free alcohol, and the track "Meeting Paris Hilton" either recounts a startling encounter with the bony socialite or makes a clever and entertaining lyrical desensitization of the word bitch -- or maybe both. The whole disc has you chuckling and scratching your head over the words, while the electronic rhythms and meticulously layered crunchy guitars send you straight onto the dancefloor. The record is very reminiscent of the Sounds' 2006 release Dying to Say This to You, because of the sassy, provocative vocals as well as the overall mood. CSS' heart and soul are rooted in a sense of fun danceability, exemplified in the track "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex," an anthem rivaling anything recorded by darling-of-the-DJ, reigning club queen Annie (or even her much more mainstream equivalent, Kylie Minogue). It inspires a basic and guttural sense of movement that can manifest itself with anything from a rump-shaking booty bounce to Natalie Imbruglia's flopsy-mopsy dance at the end of the "Torn" video. ~ Cammila Albertson, Rovi