Making a New World

Art-rock concept album about the aftereffects of WWI. Dramatic rolling pianos and jazzy segues coupled with math rock precision. Lots of short sparse instrumentals, and designed to be listened in its entirety, so play a few in a row. Really interesting stuff—it would have been easy for this to have come out heavy-handed but they pulled it off really nicely. All tracks FCC Clean. RIYL: Camera Obscura, Magnetic Fields, the Futureheads, Modern Nature TRY: 7, 2, 17, 10, 3

(1.) (0:56) Echoing drums and feedback (*2.) (0:40) Jaunty piano rock with great vulnerable vocals and a great ringing guitar solo (*3.) (3:03) Staccato math-rock guitarwork, desperate vocals, great layered percussion (4.) (2:54) Jazzy piano and standup bass (5.) (1:12) Proggy psych rock. Slow-building with huge dynamic crashes (6.) (4:05) Somber, acoustic (*7.) (2:39) Vivid percussion, flittering guitarwork, breathy vocals. Driving and dramatic (8.) (4:20) Spoken word over dreamy, ethereal piano (9.) (1:20) Echoey piano ballad with layered vocals (*10.) (2:13) Loose indie rock with driving percussion and lots of melodic shifts (11.) (2:32) Jaunty piano rock (12.) (2:01) Piano and plodding synthesizer notes (13.) (0:32) Extension of Track 12 adding guitar to the mix (14.) (2:34) Sunny harpsichord with bouncy basslines and smooth vocals (15.) (0:54) Helter skelter reprise of Track 14 with ringing guitars (16.) (1:27) Moody synth with percussion and spoken word vocals (*17.) (2:46) Upbeat and layered with a funky nod to the Talking Heads (18.) (3:33) Boppy with strong vocal hooks (19.) (2:40) Loose wandering piano outro that slowly crescendos and adds more instruments to the mix