The Australian band HTRK (pronounced "hate rock") lost co-founder/bassist Sean Stewart to an apparent suicide in 2010, and a star collaborator—The Bad Seeds' Rowland S. Howard—died of cancer in late 2009. Clearly, the group's second LP, Work (Work, Work), wouldn't be the one to lead HTRK out of the gloomy, post-industrial terrain from which it had sprouted. Its earlier releases, including 2009's Marry Me Tonight, were brooding, sinister things, with spidery legs of fuzzed-out bass and icy synths crawling under Jonnine Standish's cold and detached vocals. That formula's little changed here. Atmospheric, reverb-saturated guitar and metallic keyboards circle and spiral, rendering three- or four-minute tunes like "Slo Glo" and "Poison" tantalizing and hypnotic. Tracks like "Eat Yr Heart" and "Ice Eye Eis" borrow liberally from the sensual, pulsing, whip-cracking vibe of late-'70s pioneers Suicide (the former) and Throbbing Gristle (the latter). They teeter on the edge of a black abyss, balanced by the wispiest updraft of beauty and foreboding desire.