II

The New York trio Psychic Paramount takes its time between records (it’s been six years since its previous outing), and one assumes relentless practice and live shows may be responsible for the surprisingly tight and cohesive jazz-jam psych-rock these three churn out. There are math and post-rock elements to Psychic Paramount's music, and the trio excels at carving a kind of order out of what could feel like chaos in less disciplined hands. Yet there's danger lurking at every other turn. II is the opposite of a sophomore slump, with the band honing its chops, finding new ways to extend, say, the spooling of tension or the suspension of a coda, using pointedly complex percussion, polyrhythmic guitars, or sudden interludes of implosive noise. Psychic Paramount's toolbox is vast and diverse: guitars buzz and ring like a truck-sized windchime, or menace with distortion, or drone in Krautrock bliss. White space invokes sophisticated atmospherics in one place, while claustrophobic, dense layers undulate and pulse in others. It’s an oddly beautiful record, adding much to the current milieu of instrumental rock, “post-“ or otherwise.