Larvae – Loss Leader (Ad Noiseam)

Atlanta-based post-rock / electronic trio Larvae’s preceding 2006 album ‘Dead Weight’s in many senses represented their most ‘complete’ sounding work to date, and this latest third album ‘Loss Leader’ represents their first recorded output since 2007’s split album release with Spyweirdos ‘How To Disintegrate / Seven Ways To Kill A Tree.’ It’s also distinctly a game of two halves, the eight tracks here being conceptually split up into two stylistically different EPs. Titled ‘Turning Around’, the first EP definitely represents the more post-rock oriented of the two, with the widescreen, melancholic fusion of trailing guitar elements, slow, reverb-heavy drums and programmed rhythms aesthetically following on neatly from where ‘Dead Weight’s left off – indeed, the delicate and trailing, piano-laced ‘Heavy’ (a highlight here) apparently comes from those same album sessions. By comparison, the second, more electronics-dominated EP ‘Monster Music 2’, a sequel to the band’s very first 2003 EP release ‘Monster Music’, sees Larvae mainman Matt Jeanes riding solo. Pensive, heavy drum-laced offerings such as the Scorn-esque ‘Monster Zero’ see Jeanes following a stylistic trajectory that reveals the influence of dubstep without ever really becoming subsumed in it, and indeed there’s just as much of the influence of dark electronic pioneers Skinny Puppy in tracks such as ‘Megalon’ as say, Milanese or Plastician. In this case, Matt Jeanes’ game of two halves strategy has clearly paid off, with both EPs being as equally compelling as they are stylistically different.