Richard Cranium

This record has to be the result of an almost exclusive diet of Don Caballero, Hella and At the Drive-In from an impressionable young age. Eighteen-year-old Bri-n Brissart leads this Indianapolis trio of math rock aficionados through a six-song romp of odd time signatures, flailing guitar tapping and a whirlwind of blistering drum fills. Clean guitar frolics drenched in delay are scattered liberally over most of the softer song sections. Adhering to these rules of the At the Drive-In songbook extend to the strained shriek/shout vocals and angular guitar riffs that anchor the verses. It’s all very familiar, if you’re a fan of any of the bands Richard Cranium reference continuously, but it’s still well performed material. There’s nothing easy about this kind of intricate mathematical musical construction, even if the formulas are borrowed.