Receivers

If Brian Eno had ever really rocked out, he might have sounded like *Receivers*, the fourth full album from Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor, where there\'s an otherworldliness and a layer of atmospherics and Dan Friel’s echo-drenched voice has the same warm tones as those fueling Eno’s *Here Come the Warm Jets*. Hardcore fans might complain the band has lost its unpredictable and thrillingly bombastic edge here, but that’s arguable; yaysayers will claim it’s as if the band (now with guitarist Sarah Lipstate and new drummer Joe Wong) ran all its components through a machine capable of computing a perfect formula for them to follow (equal parts guitar, electronics, tension, noise, melody, soaring vocals, momentum, and brute power, to one-half part pop sensibility). (Okay, we need to add in one part sheer rock ‘n’ roll: “Wedding In a Wasteland” rivals the drama and “bigness” of any arena rock band, with synths howling and drums exploding at the end, and Friel’s oddly beautiful vocals presiding like a spiritual guide.) If the exquisite “Nowheres Nigh” is a little too lightweight for you, dig into the aforementioned tracks or the seven-minute machine that is “Satellites,” the majestic “The Ceasing Now,” or the propulsive “Solemn Show World.”

Receivers is Parts & Labor's most ambitious record-- and it finds them growing to a four-piece with the addition of guitarist Sarah Lipstate-- but its still finds the Jagjaguwar band stubbornly reconstructing punk anthems from the same raw parts.

The first two tracks on Parts & Labor's latest should put to rest any worries about how the departure of drummer Christopher Weingarten might affect the band's collective intensity: There'll be no stronger opening salvo on any album this year than the one-two punch of "Satellites" and "Nowheres Nigh." Wisely, the band…