The Rapture wants you to dance – but not in any manner that would convince a sober observer of your sanity or muscle control. They want you to pulse all crazy jagged-like with each sporadic, funky guitar riff that strikes over bellowing house percussion lines.

However, the Rapture definitely does not want you to think about the underdeveloped lyrics that scar their new album, Echoes, or the insincerity through which they deliver them. Whether singer Luke Jenner is shrieking or droning, he is unconvincing.

Jenner lacks the vocal strength and control in higher ranges that made the squealing falsetto voice of At the Drive-In’s Cedric Bixler shine through similarly chaotic yet rational song arrangements.

While lyrics are a primary flaw throughout Echoes, the album also suffers from a lack of focus. Messy song transitions jolt the listener from track to track, while random samples (including what sounds like a schoolyard fire alarm on track four and a cell phone ring throughout track seven) break the listener’s attention as he searches for the nearest emergency exit or digs into his pocket.

In a fleeting moment, the album dabbles in greatness on “Love is All,” where dampened drumming allows a beautifully underproduced electric guitar to jam out a catchy riff that Jenner’s voice punctuates rather than punctures.

However, Jenner too often sounds like he’s running after a train that is fast leaving the station with the rest of his band jamming away. He’s throwing bags of vocals at the caboose, but the only ones that stick are hollow ghosts of fully developed songs – echoes of a finished, relevant product.

[Daniel Haier deserves the gold star, maybe even the white gold star, just to be all classylike.]