Volcano!

Beautiful Seizure is the debut album from Chicago trio volcano!, and it's an intense, exhilarating and immensely rewarding ride. What may at first sound chaotic and unplanned reveals itself on repeated listening as meticulously structured: rhythms gather, flicker, melt (down) and emerge as something different; splenetic episodes give way to passages of hymnal calm which in turn are shattered as language breaks down into strobe-like stuttering and is tugged back into line by Sam Scranton's insistent drumming; silvery shards of controlled static ride high above everything. Melodies are stretched to and beyond breaking point, Aaron With's guitar shifts between a ragged, feverish dissonance and bright spaciousness. There are no boundaries and no indulgences, nothing here that's hackneyed or extraneous.

The second album from Chicago trio volcano! - Aaron With (guitar, vocals), Sam Scranton (drums, percussion), and Mark Cartwright (electronics, bass). Everything about Paperwork is leaner and more considered than before, often beginning with simple pop structures and tearing them apart. The ragged, feverish dissonance and bright spaciousness of Aaron's guitar has much in common with peers like Deerhoof or Dirty Projectors, but this time, more attention is focused on the beats and rhythms.

The Chicago trio's outstanding third album, Piñata is the sound of volcano! past distilled into a most potent formula for the present: unsparingly concise, stickily melodic, lyrically stronger and stranger, darkly humorous, ferociously driven, fabulously inventive. Clocking in at just over 40 minutes, the album has an aggressive energy that's as exciting as it is unpredictable.