CD: New Young Pony Club, Fantastic Playroom

New Young Pony Club took a gamble in scrapping an entire album and recording a replacement when they signed to the hip Australian label Modular. After forming in 2004, their electro-funk sound presumably needed an update, and now they sound somewhere between LCD Soundsystem and the Rapture, and the more recent Brazilian nu ravers CSS. Though she's from London, not Sao Paolo, NYPC's Tahita Bulmer presumably shares genes with CSS's singer Lovefoxx, and intones eyebrow-raising provocations such as "Jerk me", but her monotone voice conveys little personality. The band's best moment, Ice Cream - "I can give you what you want" as used on a TV ad - is extremely catchy, and the jerky, quirky The Bomb took a New Orderish synth melody to No 47. But over a whole album, the formula wears thin, and they sound like a band trying too hard to be trendy.