With all due respect to tortured artist types who churn out aching ballads of remorse or vitriolic cries of frustration, we're really into popular music's utilitarian origins: Whether it's Viennese waltzes, Appalachian fiddle tunes or "Louie Louie," it's all about dancing and partying. So we've been intrigued that for much of this decade the indie scene's frontiers have been extended by adventurous prospectors seeking sonic gold in various elements of vintage dance music. Now a new generation of club kids is reshaping the sound of the indie dance floor, smashing together all the various subgenres to create music as sparkling and colorful as the kaleidoscopic effects of a mirror ball. Perhaps the ultimate genre-busters are Florida's Black Kids. With their yelpy vocals and happy-happy-joy-joy sound, they are like a helium-inflated version of Franz Ferdinand: four-on-the-floor, yes, but self-consciously goofy -- and amazingly light thanks to a double dose of deliriously sunny fun in the form of weird synth squelches, hand claps, mock mack-daddy swagger and Go! Team-style half raps. There are also nods to the Cure -- particularly the Cure's nearly tongue-in-cheek New Wave dance-pop singles like "Let's Go to Bed" and "The Walk." But in the end, like the best of the new crop of indie dance stuff hitting right now, the influences here have been fully digested and made into something else altogether, something modern and fresh -- and, most importantly, something fun. This is a great album.

-- Tim Mohr