Circuitous

Blessed's sophomore release, “Circuitous”, cements and expands on their status as a band’s band: a patient, eclectic career outfit guided by the intense pursuit of an internally-dictated creative agenda. Here, the group has sharpened their strengths, bringing an ever-growing depth of songwriting and artistic evolution to their craft. Composed from hours of jam material and hundreds of demos, “Circuitous” comprises eight tracks that sprawl and thrash and burst and fall — a sweeping, hyperreal, industrial art-rock tragedy rendered in walls of noise, controlled drums, meandering ambience, and staccato syncopation. The record speaks on agoraphobia, isolation, grief, the hyper-control of capital and the numbness it breeds.

"Am I attempting living right?" Drew Riekman asks in "Redefine," the pensive, winding opener from Blessed's sophomore LP Circuitous. Riekman...