The Australian quintet Even As We Speak had been releasing singles for four years or so by the time they turned up on Sarah for a string of releases including this, their only full album. Singer Mary Wyer is a clear-voiced, chirpy sylph in the sha-la-la tradition, and guitarist Matthew Love gives her winning little melodies to sing; that shiny surface lets the band get away with a lot of deeply weird textural gestures, from the guttural interlude in “Beautiful Day” to the hip-house breakdown in “Straight as an Arrow” to the snatches of noise and spoken-word pieces that punctuate the album.