Google Image Search “LP3″ and you’ll get oodles of seemingly random photos as well as this album’s cover and some Ratatat live shots. Unfortunately, listening to “LP3″ isn’t much more meaningful that those random pictures.

It’s been fairly clear for a while now that Ratatat never really intended to be a postmodern The Ventures for the indie scene, as I think many would have liked them to be. Their self-titled debut had all those spoken word bits (“I’ve been rappin’ for about seventeen years…”) and they released two mixtapes of original Ratatat beats set to classic and newish hip hop vox. Less Malkmus and Stipe and more Wallace and Shakur. There were hints along the way that a career in instrumental dance-rock was feasible for Stroud and Mast, but LP3 puts these suggestions to rest. Hip hop is the genre that they’ll be working in, mark my words.

For music, this isn’t a bad thing. Ratatat, who work alongside The Neptunes, are likely to blow up big in hip hop. Fuse free mixtapes from them (with original beats) with something like Lil Wayne’s Da Drought 3 (with original flows) and you have just about the greatest idea ever. They have a long way to go towards being a household name: a co-worker of mine who confesses to “love Pharrell” had never even heard of his greatest understudies. Still, they ought to be able to ride his booty spaceship to artistic notoriety if not all-out commercial success.

In light of this, LP3 seems like a final farewell to the fans that carried Ratatat this far. Rather than drop a patronising record of “Lex” or “Wildcat” bangers, bound to get radio play, that might spoil the rapport between the duo and their fans, they’ve given (and by “given”, I mean “sold”, unlike their amazing mixtapes) them a postcard of purely incidental music for some future great indie biopic. Think Requiem K. 626 in “Amadeus” or something similar.

Ratatat draw from a much wider palate, varying between about three or four guitar tones and five or six synth sounds, up from their first two albums, which had about one of each. There’s less of that whistling guitar, a lot more Latin influence and even some 8-bit video game noises creep in. The really noticeable change, though, is a major dynamic retreat. None of the drums or guitar are wildly overdriven and compressed, unlike most of Classics and the better parts of S/T. The gain is turned down from 11 to maybe 5 or 6 and quick knob twist really guts a lot of the songs. At first listen, many of them sound completely soulless. The change in volume allow the guys to express a lot more subtlely, but nuance and noise aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

If LP4 does, in fact, turn up; Ratatat will benefit themselves by bringing back bangers, along with the more varied colours and structures of LP3. This record is great background music and of incredibly high quality, but it’s missing the guts of their other albums and mixtapes. This record will likely be forgotten, though, when Stroud and Mast go off to save hip hop from itself.

7.3/10.0