Let’s keep this simple. Celebration are a great band. Consisting of drummer David Bergander and husband and wife duo Sean Anatanaitis and Katrina Ford, the Baltimore trio spend their days crafting soul-influenced art rock that can proudly stand next to the creative highlights of their like-minded friends in TV on the Radio.

Their second album, The Modern Tribe, once again sees the band working with leftfield producer du jour David Sitek (the rest of TVOTR also assist here at various points) to create eleven songs that fuse the group's various influences into a tightly woven cohesive whole. At its heart, The Modern Tribe is the sound of post-punk and no-wave falling in love with the rhythms of afrobeat and a pile of old Stax records left to gather dust on a shelf. Thankfully, with Ford’s dynamic vocals leading a barrage of throbbing grooves, it’s a love affair that works.

Take the Tunde Adebimpe-guesting ‘Hands Off My Gold’ as a case in point. Its complex percussion, organ drone and stabbing horns channel the spirit of Fela Kuti before being punctuated by Ford’s post-punk yelp demanding that everyone keep their hands off her precious gold.

Yet it’s the crashing cymbals and jerking melody of ‘Pony’ that’s bound to find its way onto a forward thinking dancefloor over the coming months. It’s a heaving tune that finds Ford wailing away with breathy, rhythmic vocals before getting lost in spastic, Booker T.-style organs and a pounding beat. It’s also a far more danceable and cerebral concoction than anything produced by the recent hordes of glow-stick waving rockers.

Ford and Anatanaitis claim that their intention with Celebration is to create music capable of freeing the listener, even if only for a second, from the drudgery of everyday routine. The type of music that allows people to let down their guard, uncross their arms at a gig and abandon themselves to the moment. It’s an admirable goal and it even sounds like they just might have succeeded with The Modern Tribe.