We Are the Lazer Viking

When was the last time a rock band took your head clean off? How often does a punk band wind up with a creative violence so tight that the only possibility is explosion? And since when do running parts, culled from beasts such as The Locust, Zappa, Devo, Lightning Bolt, and Slayer, run through a meat grinder and then yield a sausage as fascinating and addictive as Philadelphia sextet An Albatross? An Albatross typically give themselves 40-60 seconds to make their point. Rather than condense sounds into a brick of maximum sonic density, they instead take on the challenge of making their minute-long missives sprawl. Guitars and synths careen and criss-cross over rhythm section rumble before the whole mess suddenly coheres into a nimble behemoth.