Humanzi

Humanzi channels the post-punk revival into present-day dance environments, much as Primal Scream and the Stone Roses once steered an earlier wave of British guitar-based indie listeners toward nonstop house-music gatherings. The group focuses on a politically charged strain of hard-edged dance rock. Assembled in Dublin, Ireland, during 2003, Humanzi takes its title from the hypothetical gene-blended offspring of chimpanzee and human (sometimes labeled the chuman, though that option never matched the band's chosen name in appeal), leading to the pronunciation "hew-man-ZEE" instead of the alternative "hoo-MAN-zee" that might first come to mind. The four-piece lineup—singer and keyboardist Shaun Mulrooney, guitarist Colm Rutledge, bassist Gary Lonergan, and drummer Brian Gallagher—merges Stooges-inspired heavy guitar riffs and drones rooted in the Velvet Underground with insistent dance rhythms reminiscent of LCD Soundsystem. They joined Chris Parry's enduring U.K. indie imprint Fiction Records, which had gained fresh momentum through Snow Patrol's achievements, and issued their first single, "Fix the Cracks," in autumn 2005. Early the next year it was succeeded by "Long Time Coming," which in turn gave way to the summer release "Diet Pills and Magazines." The trio of initial singles all appeared on the band's debut full-length, Tremors, which arrived in July 2006.