This Week in Post-Punk-Electrowhatever

Moving Units

Comments (0) By VICKIE CHANG Wednesday, Jan 25 2006

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I know the whole Gang-of-Four-posing-dance-post-punk-electrowhatever movement is so three years ago (A.R.E. who?), but Los Angeles band Moving Units has always stood out amongst the mediocre Raptures and Faints.

Formed in 2001, Moving Units released their first self-titled EP in 2003. That year also brought the band recognition through a residency at Spaceland in trendy Silver Lake—the same neighborhood known for breeding such equally trendy indie acts as Rilo Kiley, the Eels and Beck. By the time the trio was asked to play the neighborhood's annual Sunset Junction festival later that summer, their music was already breeding hastily crowded, sweaty, metropolitan dance floors, courtesy of some compliant DJs who were glad to finally have a prescription for what the band referred to as "an uninspired music scene."

Despite their accomplishments and achievements in popularity, though, Moving Units' 2004 full-length album debut, Dangerous Dreams, was probably released a little too late to truly cash in on the Gang-of-Four-posing-dance-post-punk-electrowhatever game. But don't let that stop you—their music still makes you do what it was meant to do: move. Plus, Friday's opener, FM Bats, is Long Beach's answer to electrowhatever.

MOVING UNITS WITH LION FEVER AND FM BATS AT THE HOUSE OF BLUES, 1530 S. DISNEYLAND DR., ANAHEIM, (714) 778-2583; WWW.HOB.COM/ANAHEIM. FRI., 8 P.M. $20. ALL AGES.