Cranking the maximum amount of tension out of their minimalist post-punk, Portland, Oregon's Lithics give a 21st century jolt to the sounds of forebears like Bush Tetras, Pylon, and Captain Beefheart. On 2016's Borrowed Floors, the combination of their tightly wound rhythms, jabbing, scrabbling guitars, and Aubrey Hornor's surreally blank vocals and lyrics reflected the anxiety and disillusionment of the late 2010s. They expanded on this mood with 2018's breakthrough Mating Surfaces and its 2020 follow-up Tower of Age, both of which proved they could take a more direct approach without losing any of their subversiveness.