Enemy Chorus, The

Slick, cinematic indie pop with electronic focus. Varied, creative, and carefully arranged songs centered on retro pop, prog, and some sci-fi undertones, but spanning a wide range of instrumentations and feels (with 16 evenly-credited musicians, I guess one can.) Both slicker and less atmospheric than previous releases, while maintaining the frequent ensemble singing and great harmonies.

Picks: See stars below.
See also: His Name Is Alive, Brian Wilson, a slicker Menomena

***1) 4:53 - Varied build as synths and orchestral sounds rise over rubbery bass vamp into a driving, hypnotic vocal groove. Sci-fi feel.
***2) 2:44 - Catchy, with kooky eighth-note piano pulse and lightly tapping percussion. Bizarre panning towards end.
***3) 4:12 - Plodding bass and vox offset by beautiful refrains. Ends with swirling delay effect.
4) 4:31 - Folksy and shimmering tonality, with steel guitar and plunking synth bloops. Atmospheric break towards middle.
*5) 5:46 - Harmonica intro into dark pop. Rough synth floor, sparse industrial drum groove, and urban sounds set under horns and lighter synth blip percolation. Builds to soaring. 31-sec out.
**6) 4:13 - Controlled instrumental with prominent bassoon. Grieg-like intro into piano and carefully arranged vamps. Cold stop.
**7) 5:26 - Upbeat, with rough horn-and-synths intro reminiscent of TMBG, into smooth indie pop. Nice, quirky electronic break 2/3 to end. Finishes with typewriter sounds.
8) 4:40 - Cut-and-paste samples intro into piano-based prog pop ballad. Ends with swirling chimes to cold stop.
9) 3:17 - Spacious and folksy fading. 12-sec out.
*10) 4:02 - 4-sec intro. Catchy piano pop with heavy perc.
**11) 5:23 - Ambitious, sitar-led instrumental. Mostly post-rock or prog feel. 15-sec out.