Album Review: PVT - New Spirit

PVT have a surprising knack for the detour.

Whenever their identity has seemed to solidify, they've dodged (either slightly or drastically) to the left. Their abstract and jazz-flecked debut Make Me Love You gave way to the stark and angular O Soundtrack My Heart. That album, in turn, presaged the murky, synth-heavy Church With No Magic — which led to the (almost) straight synth-pop of Homosapien. New Spirit is yet another surprising twist.

In a way, New Spirit shares more connective tissue with its predecessor album than any other record in the band's catalogue. Like Homosapien, its specific brand of synth-tweaking and new-romantic vocals suggest that era more than any other. But, whereas Homosapien was predominantly an exercise in verse/chorus songwriting, New Spirit is vastly different. At once, it feels like the band's most organic and most aggressively bizarre release.

In any given production there is an absolute abundance of detail and change. Salt Lake Heart starts with a rhythm as spartan and stuttering as Kanye West's Ultralight Beam — but, in less than three minutes, simply explodes. The central bassline shifts, an array of synthetic tics twist the rhythm and glistening synth lines cascade out of every crevice. It's both overwhelming and utterly sublime. And, really, quite typical of the album's alien and cinematic dynamics.

In time, it could easily be considered the band's best work.