Pitchfork

Lars Finberg plays drums and sings for Seattle noisemakers A-Frames, who released 2005's Black Forest on Sub Pop. For a few years now, Finberg has also headed up a second band, the Intelligence, whose third album, Deuteronomy, just saw release on In the Red. The new effort is the Intelligence's first with an outside producer, Mike McHugh, though with Finberg now playing all the instruments, he can't be said to have cleaned up (or dumbed down) his lo-fi ruckus.

The Intelligence have opened for the Fall, and Mark E. Smith's scruffy inscrutability is likely an influence here. But Deuteronomy's "Secret Signs" also shows some of the arty garage-punk sensibilities of Atlanta Good Bad Not Evil guys Black Lips. Fuzzed-out guitars yak back and forth between speakers, barely letting Finberg's distorted vocals get a word in edgewise over clanging drums, while an alienated variation on ? and the Mysterians organ lurks elsewhere in the mix. So of course Finberg sings something about a "favorite blanket." Damn, rest in peace, Charles Schulz.

MP3:> The Intelligence: "Secret Signals"
[from Deuteronomy; out now on In the Red]