You’ll come for the concept, but you’ll stay for the big melodies and sly beats
On their seductive third album, The Rosebuds split the difference between indie pop and dance music, laying hard into the seam where coy sweetness dovetails with simmering sensuality. House-music drums and rubbery bass quiver tensely through the blocky arrangements while Ivan Howard’s ghoulishly posh croon calls to Kelly Crisp’s demure yet tough responses. Fluid guitars, thinly sliced metallic synth flutters, and bright keyboards carry the songs through haunting peaks and sloughs and foggy harmonies. There’s an understated drama to Night of the Furies, one that has more to do with its razor-sharp songwriting than its belabored conceptual framework—the mythological narrative neither enhances nor detracts from the album’s allure. But its bipolar nature wins you over—in terms of tone, Furies covers a broad range, from the dark pulsations of “My Punishment for Fighting” to the sunny bombast of “Cemetery Lawns” and the ’80s pop futurism of “I Better Run.”