Sectioned Beam

The mysterious New York collective's follow-up EP to 2004's shape-shifting Incomplete Triangle further cements the group as early-'90s Brit-pop revivalists posing as obtuse art-crowd misanthropes. Despite their high-brow obsessions with geometric angles and their highly trumpeted reluctance to play live or do interviews, Lansing-Dreiden is just another indie rock band. However, their impeccably executed pop songs are far less pretentious than their crippled social persona would suggest. Opening with the lush and instantly accessible "Locks in the Shadows," Sectioned Beam is brimming with life. Like early Jesus and Mary Chain without the distorted guitars, the group knows a good hook when they hear one, and while the reverb-drenched space rock of "Spectrum of Vapor" and the Love and Rockets pulse of the title track sound positively early '90s, there is a definite identity beginning to emerge. ~ James Christopher Monger