Pitchfork

This track by Chicago's Cave starts off like a nice little dance-and-shout jam, well-deep bass and mid-range guitar chasing one another's tails in criss-cross figures. The drums follow the lead, pushing a motorik regimen with élan but little fanfare. The guitar eventually finds its high end, clipping away like dub on heavy uppers. Synthesizers and chant-in-a-closet vocals peel off of the riff's back. Xylophone steals the synthesizer's thunder around the four-minute mark, although you're now just dancing with a different kind of smile.

But the bottom finally falls out, the shit finally hits the fan, and the rubber finally peels from the proverbial road and warps the pick-ups on the guitar that shape-shifts the song for its next three minutes. The rhythm doesn't care about the guitar, and the guitarist certainly doesn't give a fuck about the rhythm. Imagine Thurston Moore and J. Mascis trading 8s through big amplifiers in an alley behind a German disco around 1973. The synthesizer protests, and the rhythm eventually scratches its itch by tightening its gaps. But when the guitar sears itself into ashes with a minute left, leaving the track mostly where it started, you'll only have one thought: "Bro, more guitar."