Holograms

Attention, fans of early British post-punk: Holograms are a Swedish quartet, but there's a British lilt to the vocals and a certain sense of urgency and gloom. This leads to regular post-punk flashbacks, à la Gang of Four and Killing Joke. But Holograms manage to filter classic post-punk tropes through a new-millennium lens, where a sudden shift from a blistering, feral attack to a bleak industrial dance floor groove feels natural and oddly new. The guitars are thick and bruising; the keyboard lines are jittery and screeching. The drums feel like the Hulk working out frustration. The self-titled opening track works the whip-cracking beats of Killing Joke into a rabid state of delirium, with dense layers of guitars pushing and surging relentlessly. “ABC City” is a fantastic melange of pulsing keyboard nervousness, barbed guitar-gnashing, and an über-punk vocal growl that demands shouting along to. “Chasing My Mind” is made for pogoing, with (sorry to say) a smile. Bassist Andreas Lagerström—who does most of the singing—sometimes sounds like an angry Robert Smith, which pushes the anthemic “Orpheo” to memorable heights.