Pitchfork

The pedal-pushing droners Double Leopards and heavy rock deconstructionists Mouthus are two of the best noise groups around. Not coincidentally, they're also two of the closest, having shared a practice space and performed together frequently. So it was pretty exciting when the two bands merged to form White Rock, with Double Leopards' Mike Bernstein and Maya Miller joining Mouthus' Brian Sullivan and Nate Nelson. Their 2005 album Tarpit (named after their communal quarters) mixed enveloping soundscapes with disjointed sludge, approaching the best work of either band.

Religious Knives, another Mouthus/Double Leopards collaboration, is a different proposition, but one that's becoming even more exciting. The group began as the trio of Bernstein, Miller, and Nelson (bassist Todd Cavallo has since joined in), and are a much more conventional group than White Rock. With Bernstein on guitar and vocals, Miller on organ, and Nelson on a more standard drum kit than the electronic-acoustic hybrid he plays in Mouthus, the band even looks like a power trio on stage. This is a sharp contrast to Double Leopards, who crouch around their instruments and prefer to face each other rather than the audience.

The first few Religious Knives releases were rather noisy, but hints of melody and beat gradually slipped in. Following that path, the group has now found its strongest voice, a 1960s-ish trance-jam sound touching on garage, krautrock, and even Doors-style organ-pop (it's telling that a recent live CD includes a cover of ? and the Mysterians' "96 Tears"). Atop Nelson's looping rhythms and Miller's hypnotic chords, Bernstein-- an unabashed fan of Neil Young and the Grateful Dead-- pours his guitar like syrup over pancakes, and moans like a vampire afraid of sunlight. The result is the musical equivalent of a slow-rolling storm cloud. Religious Knives songs seem to hang in the air and move forward, leaving thick trails of echo behind.

Resin is their best record yet. Compiled from singles, split releases, and live sets, it has the coherence of a studio album. The best songs offer simple melodies rising like beams of light through fog: "Everything Happens Twice" melts Nelson's marching beat into a Can-like jam, while "The Sun" fuses Miller's Manzarek-ish chords to swaying fuzz. Even the album's loosest tracks-- like the open-ended "Twelve Bottles and One White Cone"-- have an urgency that's oddly catchy. Religious Knives' affinity for drone is never far away, but the melodies are what make Resin so enticing.

It's After Dark, recorded by the trio version of the band and produced by Samara Lubelski at Rare Book Room Studios, opens with the same kind of blood-flow that Resin courses with. "In Brooklyn After Dark" chugs forward for 11 dense minutes, as Bernstein hums stoned musings about the band's home: "In Brooklyn after dark/ The helicopters are the birds...The children all have gray hair/ They stare and stare and stare and stare."

But the rest of the album isn't quite so energetic. Most tracks are slow and subdued, with Nelson's beats more relaxed, and Bernstein and Miller sounding generally dreamier. Even a different version of "The Sun" meanders in comparison to Resin's strident take. Not that Religious Knives aren't good at being mellow-- the haunted-house jam "It's Hot" and the Terry Riley-esque "Noontime" are mesmerizing enough to dilate any eyes. But It's After Dark is just a bit more uniform, just a bit less urgent, than Resin. Still, these two releases are the band's peak so far, and show a growth that suggests they too will be bested, and probably soon.