Before beginning this review the first thing I feel I should do is extend my sincerest apologies for its unavoidable use of some cringingly awful track titles. I honestly felt embarrassed for Metronome the City every time I had to type one of them out. Really terrible, and the worst thing about these titles is that they could so easily lead listeners to dismiss what is really a quite decent album as nothing more than a big wank.

New Orleans has produced an interesting band in Metronome the City. The instrumental trio is a culmination of clanking percussion, dark improvisation and guitar effects so broad as to call Mogwai, Tool and Beefheart to the same mind. Their debut album Electric Elements Exposed has been independently released and is sure to get the prog and post rock communities talking.

A Carefully Prepared Leg of a Dead Frog Twitches When Stimulated Electrically, it’s true and it’s also the name of the album’s opening track. So you see what I mean about a wank, but Metronome the City are surprisingly genuine and their vision quite exciting at times. The album is awash with guitar effects some enormous and others merely flickering. A feeling of randomness is maintained amongst the prog grandeur and both are presented equally in the foreground so they must be received in one go as a confronting wall of sound. Metronome the City sound like they’re borrowing from a big basket of other bands but they should be commended for their versatility and for never sounding like they’re running out of ideas.

Tracks like Rotating Electrostatic Generator and Vitreous Diode tend to come off as a little too eager to please with their incessant noodling and faux spontaneity. It is the more controlled moments like Polarising Resistant Coils and Regulated Hedging Mechanism that communicate a genuine thoughtfulness and direction while losing none of the unpredictability. When the album closes with Specified Test Conditions, it does so having established and concluded a satisfying dramatic arc and without having retread too much ground.

Metronome the city have managed to present a number of interesting perspectives on prog in this mature and absorbing album. The album is a signal to fans that they have a new band to look out for and a lesson to the band that adding lyrics to their music any time soon will be a sure fire way to drive us all away again.