One Track Mind

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Grooms (née Muggabears) are a Brooklyn trio whose sound is emphatically larger than their number of members suggests. Their debut as Grooms, Rejoicer, will be released on October 13th on Death By Audio Records and is bound to please indie-rock fans who are looking for something artfully aggressive, distinctly discordant, and intelligently idiosyncratic. There is a beautiful balance of fury and tact to their disjointed compositions which can’t help but evoke Sonic Youth at their prime.

“Dreamsucker” should come with a seatbelt, so ferocious is the ride. Drummer Jim Sykes has spent time providing Parts and Labor’s steely core, and his thrashing here is both purposeful and intense. Perhaps more immediately apparent, however, are Travis Johnson’s demonic guitar parts. He alternatingly plucks through bastardized, inverted chords and smashes on the overdrive–cranking up the gain and grinding out a tenderly fuzzed-out blitz. Throughout it all, Emily Ambruso offers well-placed background yips and a contrapuntal bass groove.

It is difficult to find bands who are still capable of sounding genuinely subversive, but Grooms fits the bill perfectly, blending their noisy bravado with unassumingly catchy hooks. As Johnson sings, “It’s love, it’s love.”