Cut Copy

Cut Copy are masters of absorbing various influences and then expressing them naturally through their indie dance pop. With 2004's debut album, Bright Like Neon Love, it was house music; for 2008's In Ghost Colours, it was shoegaze; and on 2011's Zonoscope, it was retro arena rock. For their fourth album, Free Your Mind, the Melbourne group have tapped into their most congruent influence to date: acid house. Seeing as that subgenre was an intricate melting pot, Free Your Mind feels like their most nuanced release to date. As the title and artwork suggest, there's an underlying psychedelic theme, heard both in the trippy vocal samples scattered throughout and in the band's admitted fixation with the two Summers of Love. But that doesn't distract from the fact that this album gets as close to a tab of ecstasy as possible. The title track and "We Are Explorers" are pure club-bangers that sound like time capsules dug up from the Haçienda's remains. They are only outdone by the increased BPMs of the aptly titled "Meet Me in the House of Love." Like its most obvious reference point and a true spiritual parallel, Primal Scream's 1991 opus, Screamadelica, Free Your Mind is a complete album that balances out the experience. With the rave comes the vital comedown in its final quarter. The soulful "Take Me Higher" acts the part of "Come Together," while "Walking in the Sky" fades out in the spirit of "Shine Like Stars." Free Your Mind won't surpass Screamadelica on any lists — it's far too much indebted to both that record and era — but you'll have a difficult time finding an album in 2013 that's as utterly energizing and sublime as this.