Far from the mentalist noise the title suggests, X-Dream’s fifth full-length, Irritant, continues in the tradition of the band’s compressed psy-techno. It’s a haunting sound, at least that’s the intention, with a heavy emphasis on fat distortion and sideways onslaughts of irregular electronic violins, sometimes disengaging from the familiar house template. On tracks like “Universal Chaos” and “No Process” (co-written by Atmos’ Tomasz Balicki), X-Dream go for pure Goa adrenalin, but several of these songs lack function or focus and sprawl out when they could’ve occasionally and endearingly crawled into a ball. – Dean Carlson
