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If you've never considered the genius behind Scissor Sisters' 2006 smash "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'," please get your head out of your butt.

It wasn't the first home run for the NY-based disco-revisionists. "Take Your Mama" came a couple years earlier and brilliantly split the difference between George Michael's "Faith" and "Freedom! 90," and both songs inhabit a universe quite outside their obvious influences. But "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" has a little extra magic thrown into its Sunshine Band-cum-Elton John stew, thanks to a thumping piano part courtesy of the man himself (who co-wrote), and that big, money-shot chorus.

Sadly, it was also by far the best thing on the band's otherwise hollow second album Ta-Dah, back when it seemed like the Sisters would be remembered for burning brightly but not long. Which is perfectly fine. Except that Scissor Sisters bounced back last April, previewing its newest album with an epic, six-minute collision of Giorgio Moroder, Pet Shop Boys, and dancefloor melodrama called "Invisible Light." It even came with a ripe spoken word bit from Ian McKellen. Listen to the way he pronounces "sexual gladiators" as if he's reading from Shakespeare After Dark.

If there's such a thing as earnest kitsch, then Scissor Sisters mastered it here. Or to put it another way, "Invisible Light" inspires giggles and a kind of awe in about equal measure. The rest of new album Night Work -- released this week -- is still sinking in, but the first single also points to the band's refreshed mojo.

As with "Invisible Light," the Sisters seem to have set up camp in the '80s on "Fire With Fire," arriving at something like Frankie Goes to Hollywood refashioning U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" as a neon power ballad. As for the song's prerequisite emotional heft, vocalist Jake Shears might be contemplating the Sisters' own career hump when he croons, "It used to seem we were number one, but now it sounds so far away," but the song's general vibe of hard-won defiance should translate into just about any situation. Move over "I Will Survive." Behold the birth of a new Pride anthem.

As a sort of addendum, since we're considering the historic alliance of gay and glam in the manic pop party zone -- and since David Bowie was only queer for a couple of albums -- please enjoy a little Jobriath, who never got the recognition he deserved. Sound familiar?