Weekends

By the time Athens dream-poppers pacificUV moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2007, the band had done some major personnel shuffling and skewed its sound into more ambient space-rock territory. In 2008 the band released Longplay 2, which included a couple of songs that threatened to drone on for eternity. The longest song on this, their third long-player, clocks in at just less than six minutes, but even that one is as focused as a laser. Weekends is as good a time as its title implies, filled with sharp bursts of moody electro-pop that are exuberant even at their quietest. The only breaks in the action come in brief, well-timed instrumental fanfare—“Friday Night Dream,” “Saturday Night Dream” and “Sunday Night Dream"—which dissect Weekends into thirds while splicing the record’s concept together. Alone the interludes would be completely lost, but here end up giving the rest of the songs more punch. “Funny Girl,” the album’s best song, glides along on a pulsing synth line that gives a nod to New Order as vocals hover in echoed monotone, while “Ballerina” rumbles underneath a robotic croon that brings Atari 2600 to the year 2012. It may sound cold and mechanical, but there really is a soul behind all the noise.