‘They pull the wool over our eyes, And they try and rule it suicide, But they’re hanging bodies from our trees, They’re selling us a sick disease’ (Trey)

Philadelphia’s Eraser are back with their second album, Operator!, and follow up to last year’s excellent Hideout.  The band continue to explore a seam of agitated no wave punk, one that revels in an anarchic sense of mischief.  But this playfulness should not be mistaken for softness, as an acerbic snarl never lurks too far beneath the surface.

The backbone of their sound remains the elastic bass lines and the precisely motorik percussion.  The jagged guitar and the tartly barbed synths are an altogether less disciplined duo, perpetually undecided as to whether they should be fighting or collaborating with each other.  This conflict, which they never entirely resolve, injects proceedings with a simmering improvisational tension that alternates between an abrasive claustrophobia and a tautly coiled dancefloor energy.  The jolting restlessness is vibrantly embodied by the serpentine contempt of Trey, the cavorting instrumental Imp, and the manically twitching Innard Skynyrd.

This inherent spikiness is more than matched by the sardonically deadpan, rhythmically instinctual vocals as they craft a series of surreal vignettes that explore how those responsible for creating a system that serves the interests of the few are so slippery in avoiding accountability and perpetuate the illusion that this is just the way it has to be.  A warped illusion that sows the seeds of resentment and isolation that are only likely to take us somewhere even darker.