Los Angeles, as we all know and love it, is a fucking cesspool. It's seething with pretty little coke-fed nihilists with shards of hair and vintage fabrics jutting from their dancing skeletons. Skid row after parties are 10 times more populated than the actual shows, and the hordes toast caffeinated vodkas to a vacuous neo-dancepunk set by a B-list celebrity DJ. It's enough to make one want to get the hell out of town, but of course it's difficult to even afford a full tank of gas these days. So instead hitch a ride with fellow Angelenos, Autolux, on their debut Future Perfect. Their optimism is reassuring.
In the first 10 seconds of album opener "Turnstile Blues", Carla Azar shames most every beatmaker with her ridiculous Leibezeit-cum-Bonham percussion. Azar's sturdy and creative drumming provides the thrust of Greg Edwards' heavily reverbed and distorted riffs. Meanwhile, Eugene Goreshter sings whispery lullabies of escape and alienation, and his rumbling bass rattles the brain. "So what/ It's alright," he sighs, "They're waiting for you to go."
It's not until "Sugarless"-- 15 minutes into Future Perfect-- that Autolux veer slightly and strangely away from relentless noise-pop. Like a super-cute HAL9000, Azar's soothing monotone says she's "over it." Over what? All of a sudden, Goreshter starts "whoo-hoo"-ing and we realize we're hurtling toward infinity with a bunch of goddamn lunatics. The middle passage seesaws between swaggering glam and ethereal anxiety. "Capital Kind Of Strain" is the ship out of fuel, tumbling aimlessly through the void; "Asleep at the Trigger" shuts down the boosters altogether.
Surprisingly, the record's production is handled by T-Bone Burnett, soundtrack producer of the Coen Brothers' rustic comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Burnett's laissez-faire style somehow matches as well with Autolux's intense dynamic as it does with Appalachian folk songs. He allows the musicians to speak for themselves-- the only evidence of his existence being the sound of his grumpy ass bumping around the studio in between a few songs.
The obvious talking points here are Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, but the history of the Autolux's band members cannot be overlooked. All three survived late-90s "alternative rock", most notably Edwards, who was a member of Failure. That band's Fantastic Planet-- along with the twin moons of Cobain and Corgan-- orbits off in the distance on much of Future Perfect.
That said, the album sounds like the work of a band that has been in suspended animation for the past five years, hidden away from the torrent of the new wave revival and the reutn of disco as a viable rock touchstone. Azar, Edwards, and Goreshter now emerge from their slumber, preserved and prepared, ready to scorch the earth with their afterburn.
