These Are Powers
All Aboard Future
(Dead Oceans)

So many bands can be easily pigeonholed within hearing three songs of their output. This makes the critic's job easier—and also more tedious, obviously (not that you really care about the demons with which critics must wrangle, but the point stands). A corollary of this observation is that most bands don't even try to do anything new—because that would take too much effort and talent. Thankfully, acts like These Are Powers occasionally arise to shake us out of our status-woe stupor.

This Chicago/Brooklyn outfit—consisting of former Liars/n0 things bassist Pat Noecker, vocalist/guitarist Anna Barie, and drummer/percussionist Bill Salas—bear similarities to neighbors like Gang Gang Dance and Black Dice in that they warp genre distinctions (and sounds, too) into malleable, flavorful mush. While this may give obsessive categorizers and record-store clerks fits, it will benefit those seeking music that repeatedly pokes the rarely touched "WTF?" portion of your art-appreciation neurons.

If there's a predominant style on All Aboard Future (apt title), it's a species of industrial dub aerated by a bracing no-wave anomie. Barie's flexible, swooping vocals lend the disc's downright strange sonic palette a "human" factor (if that's important to you), but the closest TAP come to anything like a song song is "Sand Tassels," which recalls Sonic Youth's stark, quasi-gamelan rock ballad "Shadow of a Doubt."

More indicative of All Aboard Future's temperament are "Light After Sound" and "Double Double Yolk." The former chills marrow like prime Throbbing Gristle, as a wavering bass drone ratchets up the tension while Noecker slithers out lines like "nature is a mean poet." Halfway in, the atmosphere gradually becomes abattoir-like. The latter resembles an experimental techno track slowed to 16 rpm, its deranged bass line, tarry splat beats, Butthole Surfers–like guitar slur, and unnerving, Liquid Sky vocals killing its clubland utility.

So, WTF FTW... again. recommended