Lux

iTunes Review

Chicago’s Disappears make noisy, propulsive rock that sounds a little like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Sonic Youth in a mash-up. Throw in some Krautrock and a jalapeno or two, and you’ve got a scorching hot brew that sizzles as it snakes and bombards. Stomping, chugging opening tracks  “Gone Completely” and “Magics” are warm-ups to the juggernaut “Pearly Gates,” its breakneck charge of spindly and corrosive guitars building to a howling end. The manic caterwaul that is “New Cross” recalls guitarist Brain Case’s other band, the Ponys, as does the pounding, insistent “Marigold” and the faintly Iggy-imbued “Not Nothing.” “Lux” and “No Other” are all droning beauty and Velvet-Underground-at-three-a.m. cool, and with all the fervent guitar- and drum-pummeling going on, those tracks are not only fantastic, but necessary. A person could burn a few thousand calories listening to Lux, and not even notice.