The musically agile trio Blonde Redhead's combination of the eccentric art rock of 1960s underground cult favorites like the United States Of America with the downtown no-wave-ism of late 1970s bands like the Contortions may do the band no favors in the commerciality stakes. But their second album for the Chicago independent label Touch & Go is a tour de force of amiable eccentricity.
The band's searching, energetic explorations are much in evidence from the outset, with their singer Kazu Makino's free-form vocals underpinned by an angular, unsettled rhythm section on the title track, and the whole band tumbling down a post-rock wormhole on the chaotic "This Is For Me and I Know Everyone Knows." The stuttering rhythms of "Luv Machine" lead that song into prog-rock territory, though the slightly more staid "Distilled" shows that they're capable of keeping up with their more rock-oriented contemporaries, and "Led Zep" displays an airiness that's more a tribute to that band's musical flights of fancy than a homage to its bombast.
