Pitchfork

It'd be more convenient if all music was exactly suited for the technology of the time, and today's recordings sounded best on shitty laptop speakers the way Motown was perfect for AM radio. Things are already stupidly convenient nowadays, though, with our iPods, iPhones, and flying iCars-- so take time just this once to plug in your headphones (or, jeebus, a decent stereo) for Brooklyn three-piece A Place to Bury Strangers. Singer/guitarist Oliver Ackermann makes his own effects pedals, and good gawd. You'll want your eardrums to get the shit kicked out of them at full force.

Plenty of bands have borrowed from shoegaze's poppier side, but even Ackermann's previous group, Virginia's unjustly neglected Skywave, were more interested in the head-bleeding distortion of My Bloody Valentine's famed live shows. Opening with jackhammering "Only Shallow" beats, "To Fix the Gash in Your Head" soon lashes out like a wounded jungle animal, its guitar textures wild-eyed, feral, and razor-sharp. The songwriting meets and surpasses the high standard of Skywave's Synthstatic; in a moody, industrial-stamped monotone, Ackermann explains that in order to fix that nasty gash, he's gonna wait till your back is turned, then "kick your face in." The production is just that physical, and pretty much gorgeous. If you feel a migraine coming on...buy earplugs.