Album Review: Preoccupations - New Material

Having courted controversy in their first incarnation as Viet Cong, renamed Canadian quartet Preoccupations have established themselves at the forefront of post-punk-influenced bands.

Two years on from the release of their well-received self-titled album, Preoccupations return with the impressive noise-rock project New Material.

Spawning eight tracks and clocking in a touch over 35 minutes, New Material is a jittery, brooding offering of '80s-era post-punk anthems. First single and album opener Espionage is a pulsating ode to depression that rattles the inside of the brain. Despite bleak lyricism, this track has all the hallmarks of what makes Preoccupations so listenable: sprawling guitar work, throbbing basslines, futuristic synths, Joy Division-esque percussion and Matt Flegel's eerie vocal delivery.

Disarray is a low-key heart pounder, Manipulation a slow-burning, Editors-like synth construction and second single Antidote is a six-minute lesson in ear-pounding drumming from Mike Wallace. Flegel's layered vocals crawl over the intense instrumentation before a tempo change finds Antidote devolving into a cocktail of feedback, percussion and distorted vocals. Final track Compliance is a haunting, five-minute instrumental drone that spirals into a wall of distortion.

New Material is Preoccupations' best effort yet and well worth investing your time in.