It’s about time. Autolux have been hiding in a black hole for the past few years, occasionally resurfacing into the realm of space and time just to let us know they’re still alive. They’ve presumably been tweaking the follow-up to their exceptional debut, Future Perfect, but excepting the rare show and a couple recorded collaborations, the band has kept out of sight, and the details of the new album Transit Transit have largely been a mystery until very recently, with the release of “Audience No.2.”
Autolux have always commanded respect, not for their technical prowess–which all three members possess in spades–but, rather, their tasteful restraint, which makes their visceral, more bombastic moments all the more profound. “Audience No.2” is a perfect example. Greg Edwards’ simple guitar riff rides Carla Azar’s stuttering drums while bassist Eugene Goreshter delivers his androgynous whisper with measured assuredness (and with lines like “I have always been your vegetable/And you my Swedenborg,” Goreshter’s lyrics remain as obtuse as ever). As is typical of Autolux’s sound, a constant ebb and flow of shrieking guitar atmospherics swirls at the margins of the melody. The song’s somnambulant narcosis spikes at the brief choruses before yielding to the same three-chord cycle again and again, but by the end, the riff has taken on an air of inevitability, and as the band sings in three-part harmony at the song’s coda, the guitar refrain becomes a soothing mantra. Always the most understated member of the band and certainly the most stationary–be it on stage or during interviews–Edwards’ playing here is an act of quiet heroism, the subtlest of coups.
“Audience No.2” sounds rawer than anything on Future Perfect, recalling, instead, their self-recorded demos. This probably has to do with the fact that the band no longer has the backing of Epic–or any other label–to fund production. Even so, the song doesn’t sound lacking. It’s a gentle taste of what’s to come, and it’s enough to tide us over until Transit Transit.
