Beat Pyramid (Bonus Track Version)

Britain’s These New Puritans work in a groove, filling it with buzzing, clanging guitar, vibrating bass, and shouted vocals, relying on repetition and momentum to build to a suitable climax. Unlike The Fall, where Mark E. Smith is known for unpredictability and thorny curveballs, TNP’s songs stay the course, arriving at their final destination with few real surprises. That works too, as tracks like “Elvis” and “Colours” simply steamroll the listener into submission with relentless bass and drums that churn and chug, singer Jack Barnett barking vocals like a drill sergeant. The band also employs tape loops and samplers, adding an electro-garage foundation to many tracks:  “Numerology” is cleaner, bristling with nervous energy and occasional gurgles of digital tickles, and “£4” is a celebration of looped noise and rhythm. “Navigate/Colours” borrows from their skittish “Navigate Navigate” 12”, and flows and swoops gracefully before succumbing to a powerful loop in the last minute, while “Doppelganger” is a soothing, ambient ride.  “En Papier” is a nod, one must assume, to Colin Newman and the fantastic work of Wire, a band you should immediately seek out if you don’t know them already.