Plum's 'Bodies in Motion' Is an Uncontrollable Dance Party Channeling New Wave Energy

Inspired by new wave classics, the latest album from Chicago post-punk trio Plum is a raging, uncontrollable dance party. Bodies in Motion, the band's second full-length, is a slice of advice about the highs of dancing, but no words are needed when the music alone makes the instructions this clear: move and the fun will follow.

After locating the beat, the intro to dance classes always starts with moving your feet in any direction, at any pace, patterns be damned. If you're feeling apprehensive and can't yet see where your shoes are guiding you, may we recommend one of the most kinetic songs of 2024: "Anxiety" by Plum. Every move works when set to their new wave-styled post-punk, from fluid poses to jerky flailing. The song is a perfect introduction to a band that thrives on restless energy and rhythmic unpredictability.

At their most hectic, Plum write songs where fragments of their instruments rain down with an acidic tint. Heather Perry's bass leaps like Q*bert skipping blocks to escape snakes, Eric Ridder rattles his cymbals as if they're actively spiraling off the stands, and Jeff Kelley splinters his guitar riffs into squiggly lines or electrocuted exclamation points. It's why "Can Jam" sounds like a zany cereal commercial come to life with percussive toys, and how the cool-toned diverging melodies in "Memory" maintain a buoyant atmosphere.

Underneath Plum's retro take on post-punk is a firm rooting in funk. Every song on Bodies in Motion comes back to Perry and Ridder, who egg each other on with the type of irrefutable groove that has Anderson .Paak grabbing his wig for a bob off. The rhythm section provides the foundation upon which Kelley's jagged guitar and the trio's collective vocal interplay can soar.

In the title track, Plum explains how the end of the world will go down not in a flurry of missiles or wartime scares, but when electrical outlets emit a frequency that makes everyone stand up and burst into movement. The Spielbergian conceit plays out like pure Araki camp. "Couldn't stop our hips, perpetual motion/Nothing left to do but sweat until we drop," sings Kelley over ricocheting guitar-and-bass interplay. There's no call to the dancefloor quite like our planet's ticking clock, and they milk it for all of its rapture-laced thrill.

No matter the song's scenario, Plum decorate it with the streamers and snacks of an uncontrollable, irresistible party. In "Obscurity," Kelley yelps like David Byrne midway through Stop Making Sense as his Talking Heads bandmates escalate the energy, and the trio channels the B-52's eminent Saturday Night Live set with "Club Scum" as Perry nails her falsettos amid the ample space created for angular dance moves.

Even boredom is conquerable for Plum. When Kelley confesses in "Asymmetric" that it "feels like nothing ever happens," he can't shake the imagery around him that's challenging time: the endless blue horizon, two mirrors facing each other, a dried flower pressed in the pages of a book. His bandmates come to the rescue with jabbing bass and tom hits until the embellishments drive home the obvious: you're the creator of your own fun. By the single's end, Plum sound collectively liberated and loose.

Although new wave from the late 1970s into the mid-1980s is still collecting laurels through elaborate tributes and box sets, it hasn't been a primary influence within post-punk this decade. It's why bands like Sweeping Promises and Automatic rise above the pack while their peers burrow into the nuances of noise, egg punk, and goth rock. Plum push the sound even further, making a case for why a genre that was revolutionary decades ago can sound fresh in the present when dismantled and flung back together haphazardly.

"I can't be still," Kelley howls in "Too Much Sunlight" before convulsing through a guitar solo to inspire abstract painters. "Put on a record/Set yourself right." Good advice, considering it does wonders for the trio. Bodies in Motion is not just an album it's an invitation to abandon stillness and embrace the liberating chaos of movement, proving that new wave's spirit is alive and well in the hands of a band unafraid to push its boundaries while celebrating its roots.