Pitchfork

Says the tagline for Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis: "There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator." Interestingly enough, the same moral for Lang's futuristic city applies to the Early Years' debut album, an artistic piece with a futuristic bent in its own right. Although press kits and cursory listens cast a very cerebral impression of the London trio, their debut wrestles with reconciling its stoic experimentation with surprisingly candid histrionics. While the band's lofty list of touchstones may overwhelm, deep down this album doesn't want to blow your mind any more than it wants to hold your hand.

Most of this misconception stems from first single "All Ones & Zeros", a pedal-to-the-metal red herring with an edge the rest of the album lacks. This is a band proudly conceived by two guys who liked fucking with guitar pedals enough to recruit a drummer, and "Ones & Zeros" showcases this sonic mêlée with enough force to land a spot in a Nike commercial last summer. The song seamlessly shifts from uptight motorik to space-rock explosion and back again, with frontman David Malkinson's yelps digitally spliced and reverberated for your intergalactic pleasure.

Oblique nods to krautrock such as this are greatly overshadowed by the album's stargazing, albeit direct, ballads. On "Song For Elizabeth", for example, the band effectively crossbreeds the Velvet Underground's brain-dead pop drone with the high-tech, cinematic elements of Spiritualized. "Brown Hearts" follows a similar formula, though Malkinson emotes much more strongly, hanging on to tearjerking phrases that dramatically collide with reverb-drenched guitar riffs. Occasionally the band strays from this, offering a smattering of Madchester one-offs ("Musik Der Fruhen Jahre") or an aftershock of the fist-pumping "So Far Gone".

By album's end, however, Early Years makes sure to leave a wistful taste in your mouth. They pull out all stops on "High Times and Low Lives", a nearly seven-minute build rallying around Malkinson's confessional "I'm thinking more than I ever should/ About it." The cosmic debris settles during the brief "Harmonic Interlude" before leading into heart-on-sleeve closer "This Ain't Happiness", a song that sounds like Coldplay on muscle relaxers. The sentiment's not cheap, just disappointing considering the Can and Neu! references many will encounter as an entry level to the band. On the U.S. release's bonus disc, there are high-minded flashes of things to come, such as the lengthy soundscape "A Little More Drones". The penchant for drama, however, too often sets interesting ideas in a predictable groove, and it'd be nice from time to time if the band's collective brain would tell its heart to stop its whining.