New Masses for Squaw Peak

VINYL FORMAT. Holiday Shores has redirected its solar vessel moonward, its controls set for the mystery and atmosphere of a lunar desert. The roving caravan pulls away from the salt-rusted ruins. And with a heap of guts, the band leaves in its bright chemtrails the musical hallmarks with which their 2009 debut was most closely associated (highlife guitar aerobics; new surf music). Their sophomore leap, New Masses for Squaw Peak, gifts unto us bold, surprising new textures and denser, cheekier ideas and themes. It's packed tight with style: gauze-flange experimentation; jazz-chord death-pop; shifty proto-prog; historical and personal mythologies weaved through its passages. Yet, claustrophic it is not. New Masses for Squaw Peak is as wide-open of a landscape as its title may suggest and as marvelous as the decrepit Philadelphia textile factory in which it was recorded. Heady stuff, to be sure, but never cumbersome. It's approachable – if not incredibly inviting – avant-garde pop.