Autolux slowly rumbles through with their first release in six years, Pussy's Dead: an electronically tinged shoegazing affair of melancholy. The Los Angeles trio's third album wanders around experimentally in an attempt to sound nothing like their previous records. 10 tracks pass quickly with the feeling that the band has unearthed another side of them yet to be seen.
All the Autolux elements are ever present with Greg Edwards’ minimal guitar twangs, the low bass rumbles from Eugene Goreshter and the technical proficiency of Carla Azar’s drumming. All three meld together in alternating vocal duties, having just the slightest of difference between them. Yet the band sounds noticeably more polished with BOOTS on production (having produced the likes of Beyoncé and Run The Jewels), another sonic dimension than their guitar-driven sound from which they’re known for.
As Edwards sings, “It’s so sad to be happy all the time,” in the opening track, the distorted crashes of noise appear in small doses. Leading single, “Soft Scene,” thumps light electro-distortions in a danceable way with Azar’s voice faintly droning over a hip infection. The entirety of the album moves forward in this peculiar fashion: the groovy “Brainwasher” to psychedelic pop effort of “Change My Head.”
While tracks such as “Junk For Code” and “Reappearing” might not have been out of place on previous releases, the subtle addition of other sounds make each track distinctly characteristic to the Pussy’s Dead album. Some moments rather slow down the record sporadically (“Hamster Suite” and “Anonymous”), matching up the Autolux Facebook description of being “highly functioning chaos with an affinity for beauty.” As the layers of elements in the album closer slowly layer on from background croons to disjointed guitar strums, the description pans out rather well.