Crush

Those who clocked Abe Vigoda's transition from 2006's angular punk debut Kid City to 2008's startling tropicali-punk Skeleton should know the LA quartet aren't ones for repeating themselves. To Skeleton's hot-hot-hot template, they now add glassy shards of "cold wave" pop - with synthesisers, sequencers and altogether broodier beats. Scorching temperatures, icy currents - Crush is a thermal column of vertiginous brilliance! But let's not get bogged down in categories. Just as Skeleton was difficult to define (wasn't it as much Afro-math-rock as it was tropical punk?), Crush is a similar collision of sound; another helter-skelter joy ride through four boys' private party. Even so, there was a thought process behind this new surge. In 2009, after the band released the Reviver EP, Dane Chadwick replaced drummer Gerado Guerreno, introducing a new style of regimented beats as well as other musical ideas to the table. "More than just rhythmically, Dane helped with melodies and most of the electronics on the album," says vocalist Michael Vidal.