I’ve a combative relationship with math rock. Bips and beeps and zoinks whirling around in an intellectualized insult to the traditional mores of songwriting with an ethos of, “If you can fit it in any time signature, it’ll do,” can be objectively admired without being appealing. That the tunings and guitar tones habitually register up an octave to boot is the kind of stylistic exclamation point I loathe. My antipathy is, of course, doubled by vocalists who are mixed out of the song almost entirely or, understandably, have a hard time fitting in to the sonic calculation going on around them. Either get rid of them entirely in a true bid to break from the mold expected of musical groups or work them in coherently. They’re part of the band!

To nail the middle ground between the (admittedly extremely generalized, unfair, and uncompromising) view above and whatever “mathcore” is, is a struggle. It’s what made discovering a group like tricot such a treat — Japanese math rock fit to bursting with soul, texture, and a deep sea of variety in their songwriting. Through the magic of online music catalog algorithms, I think Pool Kids might be the American antidote to my woes. I’d like to highlight their song “Almost Always Better (Almost Always Worse)” in today’s Note:

Production is lush from the jump before we get our first stylistic shift a whopping 25 seconds in. The plucky guitar goes into a whine, then into a screech, and finally invites the bass and drums to jump in for a pummel. When they next get moving as a unit at 40 seconds you can’t help but move along with a wonderful percussive beat that bounces on the line between menace and groove. Just like that, we’re one minute and 15 seconds in, the whole thing changes again and you can argue we’re now on a third entirely different song in one recording. We’ll re-enter the lush production, tone things down again, then go back to a mash of anger, love, and self-doubt before wrapping this adventure up at a stunning three minutes, twenty-three seconds.

A highlight is the wonderfully emotive vocals of Christine Goodwyne (she’s great on the entire album), effortlessly bending the song structure around herself rather than the other way around. Credit, too, to the entire group for taking elements from the genre and infusing them with the kind of bite I so often think necessary to avoid obvious pigeonholing. Producer Mike Vernon Davis (if the internet is pointing me in the right direction) should also get credit for capturing the chaotic elemental force that lies at the heart of math rock-leaning groups and creating a canvas on which it could be captured in easy listenability.

“That’s Physics, Baby” is another highlight from the album, but consider this a strong recommendation if you’ve any indie rock inclinations at all. Best of all? The vinyl looks cool as hell to boot. Congrats to the band on a great piece of work!