Hooray for Earth's Momo EP ends the way Brian Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets begins: with a charging bass drum, a flare of distorted guitar and stacked, soaring vocals. Like that record, Momo handily navigates the middle ground between rock and electronic music, layering spaced-out synths over highwire guitars, creating songs that conjure both the past and the future at the same time. The brainchild of primary songwriter Noel Heroux, Hooray for Earth are masters at swaddling irresistible pop hooks in layers of sinewave electronics.

Momo moves more like a short film than an EP. Opening with the steady synth glide of "Surrounded By Your Friends," the album slowly progresses from comfort to gradual unease. The hook in the album's 20-karat pop hit "Get Home" — which could pull double duty as the best Magnetic Fields song since 1999 — is built around the troubling hook "you'll never get home." That it dive-bombs directly into the spiral-eyed psych freakout "Scaling" only puts a finer point on that sentiment.

But what makes Momo so irresistible is the band's knack for unobtrusive, yet completely winning, choruses. "Surrounded By Your Friends" doesn't announce its chief hook, it just eases into it, and you… read more »