Unsane

For their first album since 2007's excellent Visqueen, long-suffering NYC noise-rock pioneers Unsane do pretty much exactly what they should: lay down great, jagged, skronky riffs (see opener "Rat"), chilling, bass-led slow bruisers that threaten to be called "melodic" then threaten you for even considering calling them such (the amazing "Decay"), and tons of that classic, pummelling Unsane noise rock ("Ghost" is a prime example, but so is much of the rest of the album). The Unsane harmonica even makes a return, and the six-plus-minute "Stuck" is a huge jump into leftfield, featuring some almost-nice-sounding slide guitar work and a subdued vocal performance over drums that aren't being tortured and destroyed. It works okay, but on any Unsane album, one deviation is enough; we know what we want and it's not surprises. Here, Unsane deliver the goods with efficiency and reliability.