Bands that find their voice quickly are the lucky ones. Of course, you run a greater risk of repeating yourself in the future, but by and large the hardest part is already out of the way. HTRK (pronounced "Hate Rock") aren't what you would normally consider lucky, both professionally and personally. Formed in 2003, the trio's no wave-leaning art noise found them playing alongside deities like Alan Vega and Lydia Lunch. In 2009, their debut LP, Marry Me Tonight (co-produced by ex-Birthday Party member Roland S. Howard), landed them a few high-profile opening slots for the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Liars.
And it made sense: Marry Me is doomy and romantically languid, with a pop-smart crispness that spoke of potentially good things to come. But when bassist Sean Stewart took his own life in March of last year, vocalist Jonnine Standish and guitarist Nigel Yang were left to pick up the pieces and push forward with their second full length, Work (work, work). While dark and otherworldly, much of Work doesn't feel like it has much to do with death, but everything to do with sex. But they've shifted their sound, and in the current climate they come over as zeitgeist chasers without much character.
The music of the past year or so has been hot for dark and moody sounds, from the fleeting pulses of the witch house craze to the dread-stoked, depressive underpinnings that pervade various electronic and R&B offshoots. HTRK also seem to have noticed, inflecting their sound with creepy, crawling signifiers that feel currently cool or just past their expiration date. The crucial distinction is that HTRK have a noticeably minimal sound, funneling their groaning and clanking through no wave and coldwave instead of the viscous twitch-and-bounce of witch house proper (though the drum programming suggests the Three 6 Mafia presets came stock) or the lurid, lukewarm comeliness of jj or the xx (though both of these artists are good for a name-check at just about any moment on the album).
So needless to say, Work is heavy on atmosphere, and while the attention paid to those aforementioned post punk totems could have set them apart (at times it feels as if HTRK could pull off a lounge-y mix-up of Sade and Suicide), there simply isn't enough to sink your teeth into. Occasionally constructed of some interesting parts (the processional G-funk organ squiggles on single "Eat Yr Heart", the pressure-crunched submarine hull moans of "Slo Glo"), nothing seems properly supported. The music feels unappetizingly narcotized and drab, not to mention uncomfortably claustrophobic despite all of the aimless sprawling and spreading the music does. The pair seems to have been so focused on creating a mood that they forgot to attach any songs along the way.
Perhaps most anesthetizing of all is Standish, whose coquettish, layered vocals make all the chic disaffection feel even more purposefully (and problematically) clouded. There's nothing especially bad here, but once the smoke clears from their bland, bassed-out ambiance, HTRK are another band without a sound to call their own.
