seemingly set a new standard in taut, exacting ferocity on their second album, 2015's . It was difficult to imagine a band hitting so hard with a similar degree of artful precision, but two years on, have managed to beat themselves at their own game. Released in 2017, starts exploding the moment the opening cut, "Mess of Wires," kicks in, and for the next 37 minutes the band lays out a nonstop barrage of razor-sharp guitars, rumbling bass, and drums that go off like cannon fire. is a remarkably muscular piece of work, but all the more impressive is how musical this assault can be. Amidst the aural shrapnel of "Cellophane," one can discover a killer melodic hook and an irresistible shout-along chorus. The space between the ringing guitar lines in "Caterpillar" suggests these guys learned a lot from cutting a split single with . The relatively languid tempo of "Sink" allows guitarist to present some finely dotted jangle alongside his clouds of distorted noise. And the brief "Escalator Teeth" reveals could actually boogie if they put their minds to it (though they're not going to do that for more than 47 seconds). Most of the time, delivers the same degree of bone-shattering fury that has marked their previous work, but as songwriters, continue to evolve, and from a technical standpoint, , bassist , and drummer have gotten stronger, tighter, and more intuitive. And if there were ever a band destined to be recorded by , it's , and 's engineering on these sessions allows the guitars and drums to be appreciated as individual entities as well as part of an all-out firestorm. It's hard to imagine where can go after pushing their sound and skills into the red zone as they have on , but with their third album, they've left no doubt that they're one of the most singularly powerful rock bands in North America, and you ignore them at your peril. ~ Mark Deming