THOTCRIME

As clever as they are deranged, THOTCRIME have come closer than most to producing music that sounds like right now. Beginning life as a studio-bound experimental project, they make a thrilling but confounding racket, built from frenzied cybergrind, off-kilter techno-pop, fleet-footed screamo and an assortment of stroppy electronic elements. Like having the contents of the internet thrown at your face, while unfathomable new technologies dismantle your sense of objective reality, "Connection Anxiety" is a pop record, a deeply weird dance record and an anarchic, electro-grind free-for-all, all for the price of one, 26-minute slap around the head. THOTCRIME are manifestly not for everyone, and that's just one of the reasons this is so great.

Such was the effusive response to their 2022 album "D1GIT4L_CR1FT", THOTCRIME are actively reinventing themselves as a more traditional, four-person unit on the follow-up. Not that anything that happens here is remotely normal or conventional in any way, but there is a tangible sense that "Connection Anxiety" is at least the work of a band, rather than just faceless studio gremlins with made-up names. And in keeping with that slight change of demeanor, this is, at times, a much more accessible record than its predecessor, with several moments of comparatively straightforward, futuristic pop.

Opener "A Better World Is Possible" contains several of them, but THOTCRIME are slaves to their subversive instincts, and every shiny hook is immediately undercut by some maxed-out distortion, jarring change of tempo or sudden emergence of grimy, metal guitars. Similarly, "Behind The Cracks" starts as a thunderous rave-pop shit-kicker, before morphing into angular, sci-fi screamo, with stuttering breakbeats and a glitched-out disco throb. It's utterly mad, but also incredibly infectious and, in truth, somewhat lighter in tone than THOTCRIME's previous works might have suggested.

That one tiny flaw in the plan evaporates as soon as "We Hope Some Good May Come of This" explodes for two solid minutes, with only pitiless digital blasts and a few shards of ghostly melody for company. Likewise, "This Podcast Could've Lasted Four Seasons" is a flailing, spiky screamo assault, reinvented via modern tech, and executed with programmed drums set to eviscerate. Again, utterly mad, and instantly offset by the start of "Garden Court", which is hazily melodic and rather sweet, until the compositional rug is once again wrenched from underfoot, and all kinds of hardcore-rave-cum-emo-goth-grind fine detail is crammed into every available second. "The Wrong Way" takes a more overtly pop-centric route and is the least interesting thing here as a result. The title track also takes a fairly straight-ahead approach, but with abrasive riffs woven into sunny melodies and retro-wave electronics leading to a twisted mathcore coda, with vocalist Hayley Elizabeth sounding genuinely apoplectic. In contrast, "Beyond the Journey's End" is a more sophisticated stab at combining radio-friendly sass with outright insanity, wherein a bright-eyed melody holds its own against a constantly shifting backdrop of beats, riffs and electronics.

Guaranteed to delight some and to irritate others, THOTCRIME are building up a head of steam here. "Connection Anxiety" is short, brutish, satisfying and completely out of its 21st century mind.