These Are Powers - 'All Aboard Future' (Dead Oceans) Released 16/02/09

These Are Powers return with a surprisingly structured second album of sombre experimental, electro, industrial grooves. With ex-Liars Pat Noecker involved, it’s unsurprising that comparisons can be swiftly drawn between the two groups, especially toward the Liars latter day experimentations. New album ‘All Aboard Future’, finds the self-proclaimed “Ghost-Punk” trio (Anna Barie and Bill Salas completing the line-up) moving the focus away from abrasive guitars and instead serving up a 9 track mix of experimental electro-acoustic, rhythmically driven pieces ('Double Double Yolk' and 'Adam's Turtle') and sparse, no wave, minimalistic work ('Sand Tassels').

Thanks to a van load of synths and FX units, instrumentation throughout the album sounds alien, constantly blurring the lines between electronic and acoustic. Intermittent bursts of unrecognisable noise punctuate syncopated beats and repeated vocal lines.

Demonstrating their keen interest in other mediums the album is accompanied by a booklet containing 13 pieces of art commissioned by the group (one by the band themselves). Each is an interpretation of a track or the album as a whole and has been worked into a video projection for live shows. It’s almost as if These Are Powers are attempting to emulate some kind of Exploding Plastic Inevitable style movement.

Frustratingly the promotion surrounding ‘All Aboard Future’ is incredibly conceited and left a bitter taste in the mouth. An interesting album is marred by a press release that panders and expands upon the groups’ arrogant opinions to an almost unpleasant extent. You wonder how the group could endorse such gems as, “These Are Powers have come to conjure the new musical golden age”, and “not just a new album... it’s a seismic shift” – one can only assume they have an, arguably, misplaced confidence in the uniqueness of their material.

As an album, it’s interesting, but by no means ground-breaking - if this is the future of music as the promotion implies, then the future sounds awfully familiar. At times the looped beats become reminiscent of a more avant-garde version of The Kills, who share a penchant for the sporadic use of unusual sounding guitars, or perhaps a particularly morose sounding Gang Gang Dance.

To draw a comparison that will no doubt anger band members and fans alike, imagine a more abrasive Animal Collective, but without the obvious vocal hooks and the willingness to foray into more conventional song-writing styles. ‘All Aboard Future’ suggests that These Are Powers are a group routed in no wave, electro and experimentation but maybe just dipping their collective toe in the pools of more straight-forward pop-conformity (see 'Glass Blocks').