Listen To This While High: The Life And Times' No One Loves You Like I Do

Behind the buzz: Ornaments of the once-fashionable Kansas City indie scene, The Life and Times is a trio of confirmed aural psychonauts helmed by Allen Epley, formerly of '90s math-rock wizards Shiner and a living link to that era's politics of anti-grunge. The space rockers' previous EP and full-length releases aren't so much conventional rock albums as bright, meticulously planned derangements of expectation, so to hear they've decided to junk songwriting altogether and toss off a composition a day for their new album sounds less like a weird stunt and more like the gaudy outer wrapping of sonic obliteration. This drops on Jan. 17 and the band plays Café Du Nord on Jan. 21.

Today's dope: A merry little sativa called Sour Lemon Haze reputed to have serious giggle-inducing propensities, which is about what you'd expect out of dope monickered like a Travis McGee novel.

Trippin' by numbers: Starting with "Day Six" is suitably disorienting and the headspins don't stop there, as the track heads for deep innerspace at once with no fasten-your-seatbelt warning. The resulting hyperdrive flashes us past "Day Nine" and "Day One" like queerly shaped grease spots in the road before cruising into the ionospheric relative calm of "Day Five." "Day Three" cranks the tempo back up as album resolves itself into a freeform hallucinogenic wobble between fragmentary spasms of noise pop and shoegaze metal. "Day Eleven" actually threatens to turn into a song a couple of times before "Day Ten" actually does turn into a creditable sadsack dirge. "Day Two" is more fragmented but far more exuberant, propelling us back to the band's familiar parsec of space before "Day Twelve" and an exuberant diving bell drop down to a kandyflake sea. "Day Eight" closes the album out with an extended cacophonous burst that makes you wonder why they didn't start with this on Day One.

Psychoactive verdict: Ten days of such dank is a bargain at any price.

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