Anonymous [Gatefold Vinyl]

Tiring of insipid indie rock, these London art rockers provide rousing respite. The product of Brits of arts and design backgrounds, Ciam's futuristic widescreen Wall of Sound, paranoid android film music is what you'd get if you diced Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Tubeway Army, Stranglers, and Doves into a galactic glaze, with spacy spices of Velvet Underground and David Bowie acknowledged via an electro-pop reworking of Lou Reed's 1967 The Velvet Underground & Nico classic "Venus in Furs." In fact, on the standout opener "Here I Am," Hadar Goldman plays John Cale to frontman Jeff Shapiro's vision via a gnarly but pretty viola solo. Whenever he plays that or violin, Goldman adds an elliptical element to the bigger-than-life keyboards, billowing guitar shadings, and rollover repetition. Anonymous is moody as all get out, and its nervous ambiences capture a slice o' the times. ~ Jack Rabid