Cansei de Ser Sexy are an electrifying conflation of glitter and grime. From the apparently quite mean streets of Sao Paolo (several of the band have been kidnapped at gunpoint down the years), the mostly-girl group hoover up influences as far-flung as Sugarcubes, LCD Soundsystem and Giorgio Moroder. What comes out the other end is a rumbling discoid mash-up, party music for the apocalypse. And that’s just on record. In the flesh, CSS really plunge off the deep end, cranking out Godzilla riffs and machine-gun rhythms.
Alternatively hollering and cooing over the retro-future din is frontwoman Lovefoxxx, a china-doll live-wire who, when not delivering Bjork-shaped shrieks, surfs the (sell-out) crowd and clambers up a hulking amplifier (once there, she seems unsure how to get back to earth – it falls to a roadie to retrieve her).
Freighted with references the CSS songbook may be – songwriter (and token bloke) Adriano Sintra is clearly a first rank pop historian – but, really, this is music for the gut rather than for the head. With its filched ‘70s groove and staccato chorus, recent single ‘Let S Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’, for instance, adds up on paper to nothing more than another salvo of retro guitar rock: in the hands of CSS however, the track sprouts leathery bat-wings to become something weirdly, chaotically, thrilling.