Frontman Tobacco still filters every vocal line through vocoder so thick, you can barely make out the lyrics (which is fine, really—why spoil the fun with words?), and on the whole, BMSR’s chilly brand of electro-pop isn’t likely destined for mainstream appeal—nonetheless, they’ve built on the promise of their previous effort, 2009’s Eating Us, by tightening the song structures and punching up the production. “Windshield Smasher” pits hilariously raunchy, Gary Glitter-styled guitar crunch against blaring synth-bass, morphing through proggy tempos shifts while never losing grasp of its hummable hook. “Gangs in the Garden” is funky to the point of absurdity, riding a dementedly fuzzy synth-bass pulse that’ll blow your speakers or impregnate them. “Hairspray Heart” is their sharpest, fiercest track to date, with a borderline-rapped chorus and nasty laser-beam synths.
And there are subtle expansions: With its junkyard slide-guitar opening, “We Burn” starts off like Odelay-era Beck before settling into a psychedelic groove; “Psychic Love Damage” is slow-motion electro-pop hallucination, with a chiming guitar line and synths that spiral in wild arpeggio contrails. But Cobra Juicy is definitely their own warped version of a “pop record”: It’s no coincidence that the album’s least effective track, sleepy closing ballad “Spraypaint,” is also its longest.
“We can go fuck up the neighborhood / smash all the mailboxes and headlights,” Tobacco sweetly coos over a breezy, psychedelic groove on “Dreamsicle Bomb,” the world’s least likely soundtrack to an old-fashioned mailbox-smashing. Cobra Juicy leaves you sonically stoned, in a good way—good luck even getting off the couch.
