New York's Violens exhume art-rock's choicest skeletons and place fresh flesh on the bones. Despite its synthed-up sheen, Amoral is a frenetic album that at times sounds like early Roxy Music, Tears For Fears, MGMT and Klaxons are all playing at once. Self-produced and written by Miami-raised singer/guitarist Jorge Elbrecht, it's as heavy and heady as it is hungrily ambitious. They're half violins, half violence — if they don't woo you, they'll slay you with sheer force.

Previously known for his work with left-field art collective Lansing-Dreiden, Elbrecht is influenced by the movies of Lynch and Kubrick. This is most obvious on the creepy title track, in which spoken word (reminiscent of Vincent Price on "Thriller") unspools over Prog-Rock organs. Yet most of the album recalls '80s haircut bands, if they'd had rockets for spines. Stand-outs "Acid Reign," "Violent Sensation Descends" and "Could You Stand to Know?" reveal what would happen if A Flock of Seagulls grew talons and horns. The big bombastic sounds (keyboard drones, booming beats, crunching guitars) have a sinister undercurrent, uneasy and unsettling, as Elbrecht cries out his descriptions of hallucinations, nightmares and surreal psychedelic landscapes. If Amoral begins with euphoric, almost shrill optimism,… read more »