Black Dice

This record sounds like the music you'd hear playing at that party scene you never saw in Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles, where Rocksteady and Bebop go off and snort ketamine with the other ugly mutant villains. Thin beats bleat from a ghetto blaster as cloying sound effects stammer and whine, approximating the druggy nightmare into which they've flung themselves. With intentionally cheap, garishly novel and unabashedly bad vibes (in a low-rent, oogety-boogety, haunted house sort of way), the album almost indulges in the same off-brand weirdness as Tim and Eric. While this works for comedy, it's much less flattering for an abstract medium like music. Great for eliciting laughs, the lysergic glibness is more like staring endlessly at the flying toaster screensaver when translated into music: mesmerizing, but mostly frustrating, ironic and two-dimensional. However, there is much to be savoured about some of the individual sounds they've created. The new style of queasy neuroticism could also prove fruitful on a subsequent release. Presently, the jagged goofiness and aloof skimpiness prevent the listener from getting drawn in. While Black Dice should be applauded for attempting to reinvent themselves, Mr. Impossible reads more like a tenuous transition than a fully formed departure.