A different kind of power trio, Los Angeles' AUTOLUX comprise Eugene Goreshter (bass, vocals), Greg Edwards (guitar, vocals) and Carla Azar (drums, vocals) and come brandishing a scorchingly impressive racket with their debut album "Future Perfect".
Indeed, while all and sundry seem intent on rehashing the spiky post-punk sounds prevalent at the turn of the '80s, Autolux are instead caught up in the proto-grunge and shoegazing sounds that helped shape the early '90s, so in that sense at least, "Future Perfect" is a refreshingly fierce listen that seems jarringly out of step with the current battalion of pretenders jostling for space on the NME'S glossy front cover.
Opening track "Turnstile Blues" gives you some idea of what to expect. It kicks off with a brilliantly numbskull, sub-Bonham beat from Carla Azar and settles into a blissed out Sonic Youth-meets-Bauhaus grind that may be blissed out and acid-fried, but also weirdly effective in itself before it finally gives in and congeals in a mush of Valentines-style noise.
In short, it's a pretty bracing start and by no means the only selection to make the 'highlights' list, either. Yes, the spectre of Sonic Youth is largely omnipresent (songs like "Angry Candy" and "Blanket" could almost be "Dirty" out-takes thanks to Edwards' consistently strange tunings and Azar's sweet'n'blank, Kim Gordon-style vocals), yet the album still retains an instinct and atmosphere that's original enough to captivate by and large.
Indeed, dynamically Autolux prove themselves to be consistently superior throughout, and their ability with menacing mood construction assists many of the album's best songs, ranging from the warped'n'snarling weirdness of "Sugarless" - where Azar drums with the lunkheaded economy of Meg White and Goreshter's bassline swoops in like a bird of prey - or "Robots In The Garden", which evokes the riffy, low-riding power hooks of early Nirvana before getting really gnarly and then finishing just LIKE THAT! Very good indeed.
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Elsewhere, Autolux prove that they don't necessarily have to rock hard to prove their point, either. "Great Days For The Passenger Element", for example, marries a Bob Pollard-style title with an otherworldly lysergic grace and a curiously surreal chorus (part of which runs " dreaming with our heads cut off") that recalls Radiohead at their glacial best; "Plantlife" begins by referencing early Pavement before stumbling around blindly and finally ending up all ambient and warped and the closing "Capital Kind Of Strain"'s heavily reverbed drums and forlornly doomy atmosphere brings a disembodied New Order to mind.
Autolux, then, are a stroppy, messy and sometimes indulgent beast who nonetheless shake up a rather fabulous kaleidoscope of noise most of the time during "Future Perfect." Mark them down as a band very much to bear in mind for the forseeable.
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