Album Review: Twisted Crystal by Guerilla Toss

Feel free to balk at the term "catchy," but that's an attribute you can easily apply to Meteorological. As the lead single to Guerilla Toss' new album, Twisted Crystal, Meteorological is beat-driven, synthesized sugar, a pattern of electro-pulses and minimalist bass groove broken up by howling guitar accents. Vocalist Kassie Carlson rattles off her verses like a resigned cheerleader, her somewhat comical syllabic emphasis channeling both ditz and spirit: "Hands up.

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Since moving to Brooklyn and signing with DFA, Guerilla Toss have evolved from their beginnings as a cathartic, free jazz-influenced noise-rock band to an acid-splashed party machine. Twisted Crystal is their third album for the iconic dance-punk label, and it's easily their most striking, focused, and fun work to date. As with Eraser Stargazer and GT Ultra, there's an abundance of thick, rubbery basslines and complex polyrhythms, as well as ecstatic vocals from frontwoman Kassie Carlson.

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After three albums of inscrutable noise rock, Guerilla Toss emerged with something resembling pop music on last year's GT Ultra. Make no mistake, the album still featured plenty of bonkers rhythms and sported a sheet of acid blotter on the cover, so Top 40 this was not. But GT Ultra was both danceable and dizzyingly hyperactive, the band's best effort so far. Their latest, Twisted Crystal, refines this sensibility even further, making for some deliriously giddy fun.   Opener "Magic Is Easy" deftly pairs an undulating bass line with ….

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Since their formation in 2010, Guerilla Toss have maintained an appealing mix of hyperactive exuberance and sonic innovation. From their dance-punk palette to their homages to LSD, the New York-based quintet's outré energy seems to grow with each new project. Their uncanny and otherworldly instrumental concoctions complement their uncanny and otherworldly themes, whether they're singing about a talking parrot or Jesus Christ.

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Twisted Crystal by Guerilla Toss "Jackie's Daughter" is a standout track on Twisted Crystal, the exuberantly weird new LP from Guerilla Toss. Funky, snazzy guitar chords snap and shimmy around corkscrewing synth burps and blats, and the song's bottom end seeks a happy union of clubland pulse and robotic stutter. Adding to the dizzy fun are some traces of new wave's grooviest sounds: Carlos Alomar's tightened up rhythm guitar lines in Bowie's "DJ"; the irresistible synth parts from "Don't You Want Me"; Dale Bozzio's sexy cyborg yelps.

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