Megafauna

"Is there anything else left to do?" wonders Megafauna singer/guitarist Dani Neff on the lead single of largely the same title from Ghost Coast. After the unabashed Larger Than Human (2010), experimental Surreal Estate (2012), assertive Maximalist (2014), and expansive Welcome Home (2016), that's a fair question. What's left when the local trio's forged a progressive psych-rock amalgam all their own? Behind Neff's drill-bit leads and delicate timbre, drummer Zack Humphrey and bassist Will Krause's compound ballast, and keyboardist Winston Barrett's melodic elan, fifth long-player Ghost Coast continues to bridge exploratory psychedelia and aggro post-punk. The introductory "Meteor City" and "Light Knife" gleam some of the shredder's best work, as her voice mimics six-string melodies note-for-note on the New Wave punch of the former and arpeggiated acrobatics of schizo-prog on the latter. In the serene "Left the Sound," tom-tom work and space-age synths spiral off their axis into the juxtaposing and off-kilter "Mania Beam," whose unconventional time signatures and cerebral cracking verge on implosion. Krautrock twofer "Fluorescent Super Moment" and "Holy Me Sky" reach cosmic expanse through caustic distortion and interstellar electronics.