This Is Happening, the third and purportedly final LCD Soundsystem LP, finds James Murphy up to his old tricks.

The nine tracks comprise more than an hour of new material from the band for the first time since 2007’s indisputably perfect Sound of Silver. What you’ll hear inside This Is Happening is essential LCD Soundsystem, for better and for worse.

At its best, you’ll find yourself lost in Murphy’s world, one that has all the features of Willy Wonka’s factory, Xanadu and the perfect high school reunion wrapped into one excessively vivid environment. The listener will become unconsciously, and perhaps unwillingly, immersed in a community created by ones and zeros that is as carefree as a children’s book, even though the law is polyamory and the ruler is the dancing queen. “Dance Yrself Clean,” “Drunk Girls” and “All I Want” are so fantastic and in sync with LCD repertoire that if told they were Silver B-sides, no one would have trouble believing it.

But the blending together of some of the band’s signature attributes creates a new characteristic, one that is seldom seen within its work: imperfection. Previously known for anomalies such as turning blatant repetition and eight-minute dance epics into perfect pop songs, the band begins to lose itself in This Is Happening by combining these two characteristics at the wrong times, in the wrong way.

Despite never having a moment that could be defined as dull, it’d be tough to argue that the album doesn’t begin to meander halfway through with the first notes of “You Wanted a Hit.” Although this track is nine minutes, it is more a calm statement of dissidence than an anti-commercial epic. For those who found this repetition-sans-climax a bit trying, the 15 minutes that comprise the next two tracks won’t offer much relief. Not until the finale “Home” do things really swing full circle for a proper ending.

Even though LCD has offered an album that is not in line with its quintessential predecessor, no one will be able to spend an hour listening without the realization that they are hearing something completely original – something rarely accomplished in 2010.