With rock music so neatly classified into tidy manila folders these days, any band willing to embrace schizophrenia deserves at least a cursory listen. Despite the deceptively Strokes-like start of “Chrysanthemum” this baby-faced Portland band subsequently glides into a genre-adverse groove that could either be the sign of an emergent new sound or a delightful vestigial mutation. Either way, Hausu have something good on their hands.
From the shuffling emo crumble of “Gardenia” to the skin blistering noise rock of “Vasari Joust”, Hausu execute an unconventional post-hardcore stranglehold that sometimes invigorates not unlike autoerotic asphyxiation (or so I’m told). “Tetsuo” squeezes into the post-rock fray like a minor league Mogwai before sputtering out the other end with the jagged “John Codeine”, a tragically truncated track that spends its second half screaming in the fields of sonic love.