Lulu is back, baby! To be completely honest, I haven't listened to much of Vega's 21st century work, so it may in fact have been 2007's Station that was back when Lou Reed and Metallica blessed us with the decade's most maligned record. In any event, Alan Vega died last year, obligating at least one good faith listen to his first posthumous release.

Let me back up: you may recognize the name Alan Vega, likely from his band Suicide's self-titled debut from 1977. If you don't, check it out - it's phenomenal, simultaneously a landmark of angry electronic music and rock and roll. I can only imagine that it was incredibly novel-sounding at the time, not least because its DNA has popped up just about everywhere in the last forty years - most recently, Xiu Xiu, Nicolas Jaar, and Dirty Beaches have put out tracks or entire albums with obvious debts.

IT is not that. For one, at times IT is not good - depending on your tolerance for anti-establishment platitudes, it can occasionally scan as a caricature of whatever the dumbasses that responded to the election of Donald Trump with well, at least punk'll be good again were imagining. At other times, however, IT is brilliant - its best moments are a blend of Lulu, the most unhinged 10% of The Doors' The End, and an Arca remix of Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime (sadly, that's a hypothetical). Over the course of the album, one remembers that these sorts of moments get much of their power from buildup, the result of sonic dynamics that aren't quite explored here. Nevertheless, shouts to the late Alan for looking out for the people that thought Yeezus went to shit after On Sight.

Highlights: Dukes God Bar, Motorcycle Explodes, Prayer