Matthew Dear's 2003 debut, Leave Luck to Heaven, proved that dance music could appeal to the finicky indie-rock crowd, boasting songs that had just enough relatable elements — vocals, guitar — for those stuck in a "dance music = rave" mindset. (It didn't hurt that the sloe-eyed brunet is easy on the eyes.) Black City, Dear's fourth, largely excellent album, demonstrates that the versatile producer-DJ can also write a mean pop song — albeit a pop song that traverses an alien universe filled with sonic equivalent of boogymen.

On Black City, Dear has honed his singing chops to match his studio-production finesse. On previous albums, Dear's vocals played a mostly minor role, but here they sound like major plot points. City is slower than its predecessors; gone are the glitchy breaks that got Dear slapped with a "microhouse" label in the early aughts. That's not to say Black City isn't sexy: "I Can't Feel" rides a funky atonal bassline all the way to a squelchy guitar breakdown; "Little People (Black City)," the centerpiece of the album, uncoils deliberately over a brilliant nine minutes, morphing from 4/4 house to '80s synth-pop with an avant-punk twist. But Dear's City is a dark one,… read more »