Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

Third Shift
4 Out of 5 Stars

The Scissor Sisters' third album, "Night Work," is their most derivative album to date. It's also their most cohesive album to date. They want to party like it's 1985. They want you to stop looking back in anger. They really, really want you to dance.

"Night Work" grabs you by the arm and throws you into a sweaty, pulsing old school disco. If it was any more retro, they could have put a Casablanca Records label on it. And it's finally the a;bum where they do their idols proud. Listen closely and you'll catch Kraftwerk, The Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Michael Jackson's "Thriller," a whole bunch of Elton and Giorgio Moroder. As such, it's a total blast from start to stop.

The Scissor Sisters haven't even just copies the obvious. "Harder You Get" mimics the oddball gay classic "Walk The Night" from The Skatt Brothers (there's a Casablanca reference again) in its sinister, slinky kinkiness. "Something Like This" knicks "Radioactivity" from Kraftwerk. Then Sir Ian McKellen goes all Vincent Price on us at the end of "Invisible Light" and does a "Thriller" rap on top of a song that splits the difference between Frankie Goes the The Pet Shop.

Yet there's one moment where Jake Shears transcends the mirror ball and gets higher than he has on any prior SS Song. "Fire With Fire," a power ballad about survival, tosses aside all the kitsch and camp and aims for the stars. It's pure emotion, song from the heart, and nails the core of what "Night Work" is about; the lost generation the Jake Shears fantasized about if The Lost AIDs generation was still with us. It's the most realistic song they've made to date, and adds another notch to an album that will probably end up in my top five favorites of 2010.