New albums we listened to this week

PUP | OFF! | Millie and Andrea | Inventions

PUP | B+

The Canadian brats in PUP have been playing together for just a couple of years, but on PUP (Side One Dummy), they’d have us all fooled into thinking they’ve been around for at least a decade — that’s how tight and confident this debut is. And just like a not-yet-fully-grown canine, PUP is all frantic energy, yips, yowls and wild unpredictability. Stefan Babcock’s snotty posturing comes off like a Dookie-era Billie Joe Armstrong, but, thankfully, it’s one with far more emotional intelligence.

—Marc Snitzer

OFF! | A-

Dear Keith Morris: Thank you for keeping hardcore fascinating. Wasted Years (Vice) is exactly what we expect from an OFF! record at this point — a 16-track Listerine burn. In 23 or so minutes, it’s also a blistering reminder that between this band and FLAG, you’re doing so many more interesting (not to mention dignified) things than your former Black Flag buddy Greg Ginn. Sincerely,

—Marc Snitzer

Millie and Andrea | B+

Miles Whittaker (of Demdike Stare) and Andy Stott are two principals among the abstract techno troublemakers at Manchester’s Modern Love label. Drop the Vowels finds the twosome running amok through a brittle, blown-out, post-industrial soundscape. It’s bookended by clanking ambience, but is otherwise seething with frenzied, sawn-off break beats. It’s all about as vibrant and gleeful as you can imagine of an album that’s also well represented by track titles like “Corrosive” and “Stay Ugly.”

—K. Ross Hoffman

Inventions | B-

Call it a safe bet and a risky proposition: Matthew Cooper (a.k.a. Eluvium) and Explosions in the Sky’s Mark T. Smith are each masters of atmospheric, deeply emotive instrumental music, but how exactly would their distinct modes of ambient/post-rock/what-have-you align? The duo’s self-titled debut on Temporary Residence favors an Eluvium-like gentleness and ease, though with an almost dizzying array of sounds — murmur-y subvocalizations, primeval drum beats, thick shoals of white noise — that help stir up considerable drama without resorting to full-on Explosions-style bombast.

—K. Ross Hoffman