LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening [2LP]

James Murphy made This Is Happening as if it were LCD Soundsystem's last party, and this 2LP pressing gives its long, patient grooves room to stretch.

Released in 2010, the band's third album was recorded in a Los Angeles mansion, and Murphy openly hinted it could be their final record. The group did bow out the following year with a famous farewell show before eventually returning, which makes this set feel like a closing statement written with full knowledge of the ending.

"Dance Yrself Clean" is the great tease, three minutes of near-whispered drum machine and murmured vocals before the synths crash in at full volume. "Drunk Girls" is a scrappy, shout-along nod to art-punk, while "I Can Change" wraps genuine heartache in glistening synth-pop.

"All I Want" builds a squealing, Bowie-indebted guitar line into something quietly devastating. Murphy produced the whole thing himself, and the attention to detail is obsessive, every drum hit and synth swell placed for maximum lift across those long, hypnotic builds.

Spread across four sides, the album finally gets to breathe the way a dance record should. It catches a band at its peak, equal parts nightclub and confessional, and it still sounds like the best kind of 3am conversation.