Spencer Krug, the Wolf Parade frontman and occasional member of Frog Eyes, confounds us with yet another delightfully cacophonous and lyrically vexing chamber pop/art rock album from his solo project, Sunset Rubdown. The album is nightmarish and carnival-esque in its lo-fi recording and warbled, swirling instrumentation. It flows seamlessly between tracks-musically, through chord development and transition, and conceptually, through metaphor, theme, and character. The luminous mess is then laminated in Krug’s droning vocal glaze (think Berlin-era Bowie). To say that Krug resuscitates a sound of generations-old art rockers would be a misstep in assuming that ’70s rock had more of an impact than its “art for its own sake” mentality had deigned. Instead, Krug disassembles the old sound and reconstructs an album with Dada-ish flare, MIDI interfacing, and theatricality. The result: a complicated, beguiling, and inspired reinvention of good indie art rock music for the savviest of ears to appreciate.

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