Drift

A band as creatively reckless and as unabashedly exploratory as The Men comes around only a few times in any generation. Even 10 years and seven albums in, a sentence like that comes off as hyperbole, but it’s true. The New York City-based quartet has scorched through so many bizarre amalgamations of punk, fuzz, art-rock, campfire clap-alongs and everything in between that it’s a wonder anyone understands it at all. The Men’s new album, Drift, finds the band in even more unfamiliar territory, kicking off with the nightmarish industrial-punk cut “Maybe I’m Crazy.” The song’s underworld skronk, interestingly, isn’t necessarily a portent of the experimentation to come, but rather a bold introduction into the band’s anything-goes aesthetic. The near absence of the enraged electric guitars allows nuanced psych (“Secret Light”) and plaintive Americana (“So High”) until the band forgets a little on the Newmoon-esque “Killed Someone” and burn the joint down. Highly recommended.