By: Ben Salvo
Rating: 10.5/11 (whoa!)

“I can’t wait to get you off tonight.
I’ll shift shape and make you soft tonight.”

Super-charged sex pop just had a really great year.  Perhaps it was Passion Pit’s homemade synth-backed falsetto soup or Lady GaGa’s slew of kinky number one hits.  Maybe the electro-love energies created by the ever swelling base of DJs and producers remixing remixes of radio-edited edits has finally erupted into the streets like an over-eager teenager on the last night of bible camp.  Whatever it was that ignited this new sexual explosion in music, America better soak it all up while its still fresh.  Good news: Awesome New Republic is serving it up hot and sticky on their latest full-length, Hearts.

Miami musicians Michael John Hancock and Brian Robertson formed Awesome New Republic in 2004 and released ANR So Far a year later, an album made up of two smaller projects combined that earned them street cred, even outside of Florida.  Hearts is a truly complete album, and it comes along with a concept that could turn even the weirdo sex giants from Of Montreal on their heads, what with Star Wars references intermingled with climactic wailings of pleasure, spun together in a gay cascade of disco narrative.

For effect, some lyrics from the record’s Act III opener, “Deep Love,” have been printed at the top of this article.  It’s not the best track they’ve put out, but it serves as a nice portrayal of their intentions, and its style – Beck meets George Michael – totally refined.  The true standout track is “Birthday” with its fast paced 70s skating rink chorus and solo breakdown section (I see a video with lots of star wipes followed by heart wipes).  One of their best hooks can be found on the track “Dances When.”  Lyrics are pretty consistently kick ass throughout the album.

Awesome New Republic have evolved past the boring, sexually frustrated America of yesteryear into the kind of nation our free-loving, hippie parents would be proud of (that is, if our parents hadn’t given up on the dream the moment some establishment square gave them a paycheck, man).  Let’s not let the efforts of these funky Floridians go to waste.  Go out and bump some uglies on the dance floor to the music of Awesome New Republic!