Electro Group

Big noise is tops, and this local trio has a swell recipe for making woofer-shaking din—thick slabs of mossy, Sabbath-blunted chords that are, paradoxically, open and ringing, backed by wandering bass and drums and topped with elfish vocals and church choirs of old telephones. Imagine Teletubbies ripping through town in a monster truck, testing all the swell doodads they just boosted from the corner Radio Shack. Or, more concretely, picture a head-on collision between Hüsker Dü’s Warehouse: Songs and Stories and Yes’ Close to the Edge, distilled down to a 23-minute EP. With everything from the driving Arctic boogaloo of “Nobody Knows” to the pensive cumulo-nimble prog anthem “Noon Blue Apples,” Ummo has enough surprises to keep drivers enthralled from Helsinki all the way to Vilnius.