I fear this might not be an album that lends itself to deep analysis, but I also think it’s the best album released between August 23, 2005 and November 22, 2010, so I had to take the opportunity to write about it.

Released March 22, 2008, In Ghost Colours was the second album from Australia’s Cut Copy. The album, produced by DFA Records co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, combines synth-pop, electronic dance, and even guitar-based ballad elements into a glossy, upbeat, engaging package that works as a party record or on headphones (though you may have to restrain yourself from dancing in the workplace). Upon first listen it immediately entered my collection as a favorite, getting massive airplay throughout the rest of the year, and still being a periodic favorite I revisit when I want to dance, have fun, or just feel upbeat. This is less an in-depth critical analysis and more a fan trying to persuade you to listen yourself, and I find no shame in that.

The review of this album on allmusic.com by K. Ross Hoffman finishes with this sentence:

To be sure, In Ghost Colours is a triumph of craftsmanship rather than vision — a synthesis and refinement of existing sounds rather than anything dramatically new and original — but it is an unalloyed triumph nonetheless, and one of the finest albums of its kind.

I’m not sure if I can say anything about the album more relevant and profound than this, but I’ll try anyway.

You’ll know by the first three tracks if this album is for you. The gentler, more moderate  tempo of “Feel the Love” makes a welcoming introduction for you to decide whether you want to get on the dance floor to this party. For the amount of sheen on the track and the electronic elements, there’s still a distinctive acoustic guitar that drives the melody, particularly noticeable until the drums kick in after the first verse. It’s danceable without being too intense, a lighter jam that fuses the traditional and the modern.

It also transitions seamlessly into the second track. “Out There On the Ice” follows with a more drum- and bass-driven track, the flipside of In Ghost Colours, a deeper, darker, more heavily electronic sound that characterizes as many of the tracks as “Feel the Love”‘s brighter, acoustic / electric mix does.

The third track, “Lights and Music,” is one is a full-on dance-floor jam, most clearly announced when the synthesizers start ascending as they repeat the melody (and the tempo speeds up accordingly) before breaking into the first chorus. The title is appropriate; it’s very easy to visualize the laser lights and disco balls going off in the club when this plays. It’s an early high point of the album, instantly memorable dance-pop, and by the time it ends, you’ll know if this is the album for you.

If so, “We Fight for Diamonds” will give you a minute-long interlude to get some water and get your legs back before you go back out on the floor. One of the more ingenious elements to the craft of this album, and one that makes it hold up as the perfect dance party disc, is the set of four short instrumental tracks interspersed throughout. The longest is 1:21; they make for the perfect interludes for a break to collect your breath if you’re really rocking out, and to just chill for a second if you’re not.

The album also concludes with a three-minute instrumental, “Eternity One Night Only,” a great track to cool down with after a strong finish to the dance party. “Nobody Lost, Nobody Found” is the second-to-last track, a song of unrequited love, whether general or specific (the singer does say “always from the same height / always falling down,” after all), and without thinking about it too hard, might be the most danceable tune on the topic in my memory. It’s one of the major standouts on the back half of the album, up there with “Far Away,” whose light, melody-driven verses give way to synth- and harmony-backed choruses– the shift from dancing on the balls of your feet to shaking your hips.

The centerpiece of the album is the ninth track, “Hearts on Fire,” coming as it does almost exactly in the middle of the album for good reason. It’s the apex, the point where all the disparate parts of the album best come together– the synthesizer elements, the dance-floor beat, the instantly catchy melodies, the lovelorn and lonely reaching out for connection. (Certainly not something I would have related to ten years ago, no sir.)

But the rest of the album is terrific, too, and alters moods, tempos, and styles well enough to never get dull while still being appealing and easily accessible. Slower, gentler music intersperses with heavy, beat-driven passages, sometimes in the same track.

The lyrics aren’t going to win any awards, but at the same time, their simplicity keeps the album feeling universal and endlessly replayable, suitable for a variety of occasions beyond dancing. Lines like “lights and music are on my mind” and “with hearts on fire I reach out to you tonight” aren’t new sentiments, but they work because they reflect feelings we’ve all had, more or less. This is a pop album, after all, and like most pop songs, the subject matter is primarily fueled by love (or at least lust), and occasionally by more explicit suggestions to get on the dance floor.

While this album has strong roots in the 1980s, with its synthesizers and danceability, its disparate influences and the craft with which they are synthesized (no pun inten– okay, I’m lying) make it very much modern, very much its own thing. In Ghost Colours stands as a gem, a perfect album from start to finish. It’s an album whose pleasures lie more in its craft than its innovation, but by that same token, that helps make it feel timeless in a way many albums don’t. Even the “modern” elements mostly come across as glossier, updated versions of pop, rock, and dance staples from the 1980s or even earlier. It’s not very original; it’s just the best, most well-executed version of this stuff around. In Ghost Colours stands with Daft Punk’s Discovery and LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver as the best electronic albums of that decade. “We Fight For Diamonds” is an appropriate track title– this album shines. Go forth and listen.

(Oh, and to answer the question you’ve been wondering since the first sentence, those are the release dates for the New Pornographers’ Twin Cinema and Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.)