Scissor Sisters

Four years may have gone by, but Scissor Sisters have returned like it was just a hedonistic weekend spent in the village. A full album scrapped and an inspirational trip to Berlin for frontman/songwriter Jake Shears caused the delay, but anyone hoping the NYC group would pick up right where their self-titled debut left off will be in for a treat. After lacklustre second album Ta Dah in 2006, Shears took his German club-going experience and ran with it, hiring Stuart Price (Madonna, Kylie) to help him compose a love letter to New York's gay club scene of the '70s and '80s. Passing up the handful of ballads and slow jams that were peppered throughout their first two discs, Night Work never comes down from its ecstatic trip. The beats don't fizzle out, even on tricky single "Fire With Fire," which begins as a torch song and morphs into an elated club banger that wears the Berlin influence loud and proud. With Price, Scissor Sisters have become a full-on club act, something they teased early on, but ditched with Ta Dah. As a result, they dip their toes in all sorts of pools, revving up the title track to evoke the Pointer Sisters, dipping into Iggy Pop's dirty, subterranean punk on "Harder You Get" and aping Giorgio Moroder's synth-gargling disco on the Ian McKellen-assisted "Invisible Light." Night Work lives up to its title, concept and buttocks-clenching cover, throbbing and thrusting with the overzealous pulse we've come to expect from this flamboyant gang.