Post-punk is a maddeningly nebulous tag, invoked just recently to describe Shopping's budget funk, Ceremony's spacious arrangements and lithe leads, Lower's wrought cabaret, and so on. But the shared imperative is tension, which is exactly where Negative Scanner excels on its eponymous debut. For the Chicago foursome, it's at once a conscious goal and the consequence of a band threatening to fly off the rails. Suffused with desperation and determination, the songs on Negative Scanner trudge from forbidding valleys to staggering peaks.
The players' physical exertion is palpable:drummer Tom Casling punctuates white-knuckled eighth-notes with frantic cymbal strikes, bassist Nick Beaudoin opts for down-strokes, and dual guitarists Matt Revers and Rebecca Valeriano-Flores hold back, chiseling riffs down to just a few needling notes. For a fast and barbed record, it might seem counterintuitive to cite the players' restraint, but they frequently shove out or delay anticipated climaxes and chord changes. Those moments are especially charged and frenzied – much more invigorating than if the group just cut loose when expected. Coupled with trebly, sinuous production, it lends Negative Scanner the feel of skittering on a knife-edge.
Valeriano-Flores' pressurized bellow also distinguishes Negative Scanner from similarly zipped-up post-punk acts. Syllables arrive in fits and spasms, like clusters of jabs, making her titular refrain in a song like "C.P.D." exceptionally stirring, especially given its ghastly lyrical impressions of assault. "Tireless violence / It decides if you submit to it," she projects above the arresting chill of two alternating guitar chords. "Don't set me free, C.P.D. / Get off easy, C.P.D.," she sputters at the end, each letter landing like an indictment. On "Saturday Night & Sunday Morning," Valeriano-Flores audibly resists the urge to yell, which hard-boils her enunciation into the fraught, warbling shout of a fighter on the other side of exhaustion.
Negative Scanner's earlier catalog, which consists of two EPs released in 2014, featured a couple glimpses of pop in the midst of chaos, particularly on "Ambitious People." Negative Scanner makes good on this impulse with the platinum projectile "Would You Rather", but otherwise seems unconcerned with bright melodic flourishes. The band's accomplishments here are harder earned. "Planet of Slums" vamps on static notes with increasing vigor until feedback envelops and turns it to scree. The same thing happens with Valeriano-Flores' vocals, which ascend with perceptible effort.
But "Pity", the closer, is Negative Scanner's loftiest statement. For an album that's so concerned with how to configure a crescendo, "Pity" is a fitting endnote. At its apex, Valeriano-Flores trumps all of her earlier performances with an exultantly delivered line that yearns for even more: "Do you want to get higher? / Do you want it, do you will it?" Forget punk and post-punk, "Pity" is a blasted ballad – and a potent demonstration of how tension is most rewarding when it snaps.
