The House of Apples & Eyeballs

The House of Apples and Eyeballs is a thrillingly loud, rambunctious, and inventive collaboration between two groups who are very impressive separately, the Octopus Project and Black Moth Super Rainbow. The former brings an intelligent, studied post-rock angle to the mix while the latter adds a goofy, sunshiny electro-pop approach (and some vocoder). Together, the sound they make is aggressive, melodic, and startlingly good. From the opening track, "Spiracle," which clatters like an industrial washing machine with an unbalanced load, to the beatless noisescape that ends the record in a melancholy haze ("Foxy and the Weight of the World"), there's no shortage of dazzling surprises. The first time through you really have no idea what's coming next. It could be sweetly chiming guitars ("Elq Milq"), outer space R&B ("All the Friends You Can Eat"), or subdued techno ("Beds"). Mostly it's just intelligently crafted, blindingly cool tracks like "Lollipopsichord," "Runite Castles," or "Psychic Swelling." This is a collaboration that should be made into an official entity. Once you've crafted something so right, you just have to stick together, right?