Silhouettes Of Soldiers In The Streets

Katerine “Etres Humains” – Surely “Man Vs. Machine” is one of the more indestructable tropes of our age. No matter how many people beat the theme into the ground, there’s always going to be someone more than willing to base an entire work on the theme. Philippe Katerine’s Robots Après Tout reverses the title of Daft Punk’s most recent LP and spends much of its time dealing with stifling, mechanical conformity but whether it’s intentional or not, the stiff cadence of his “robot choir” never sound anything but completely human, least of all during the asthmatic orgy breakdown of “Etres Humains.” (Click here to buy it from Bungalow.)

VietNam “ApocLAypse” – There’s no getting around this, and so I may as well address it right away — this band sounds almost exactly like Neil Michael Hagerty fronting late-period Spiritualized. It’s a great combo, mixing up Hagerty’s gruff, expressive mess of a voice and loose noodling with soulful bombast and desperate melodrama. “ApocLAypse” flows directly from another song and is best heard in the context of the band’s debut album, but it’s their most arresting cut, twisting nostalgia and trauma so tightly that they become the same thing. (Click here for the official VietNam site.)

Elsewhere: Marathon Packs returns from a brief hiatus with a review of a somewhat funky Jandek concert in Indianapolis.