At first seeming slavishly indebted to the US guitar underground greats, particularly Sonic Youth, Bikini Atoll bear investigation for the careful, surprising details they add to the template—as on the pastoral "Black River Falls", where guitars pulse like a heartbeat under Joe Gideon's latter-day beat lyrics, and post-rock lullaby "Perfect Method Flawed", with its spectral harmonies, soft distortion and geiger-counter crackles. Lacking the ambitious sonic dynamics of labelmates Explosions In The Sky, Bikini Atoll score instead with subtly versatile mood music.

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