Here’s what I don’t get. There are certain schools among the indie-critical community that go, for lack of a better word, all “gooshy” for a band like, say, Xiu Xiu, raving about every little thing said band wedges in a sleeve of cardboard on a bi-monthly basis. Nothing wrong with that, necessarily. But I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to say that if Xiu Xiu were to put out a blank CD-R and title it “The Sound of Laughter,” these certain schools (ahem…Pitchfork, Stylus, I’m looking at you) would be all over it like a Smiths/Joy Division/My Bloody Valentine reunion tour.

And yet, when Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart actually opens up his heart and expresses his undying love for like-minded labelmates The Dead Science, these same people go a quick, rubbery one, shrugging off the band’s CD Frost Giant because, supposedly, there is only one Xiu Xiu, and thou shalt have no other Xiu Xius before me.

Oh, poor souls. I believe it was our sweet, sweet Lord who first said, “If you love me, keep my commandments…and I will give unto thee everlasting awesomeness.” And so it is with The Dead Science. For if you will take Xiu Xiu not as a benchmark, but as a stepping stone, and if you will give Frost Giant the same chance that Mssr. Stewart has, you will quickly find yourself in the midst of one of the best albums of the year.

The members of The Dead Science already have another album and an EP to their name, but this is easily the crowning achievement of their nascent career—as fully realized as last year’s excellent Bird Bones in the Bughouse EP, but a force to be reckoned with in scrumptious LP form.

If anything is going to scare people away from this release, it will probably be Sam Mickens’s I-have-a-knife-in-my-throat vocals. But this is probably the same thing that many others will find most endearing. And for those still on the fence, this is also just an incredible guitar album, nodding to everyone from Deerhoof to Blonde Redhead to even—dare I say it—Radiohead. And it’s the perfect landscape for Mickens’s haunting lyrics.

I could name song highlights, but really, Frost Giant works best as a whole. Mickens has described the album as being “about people…being kind of crushed by forces they can’t see…and being in love with being destroyed,” and in that context, every song here fits perfectly, everything in its right place.

brent[at]saltshakermagazine.com