Starfucker: Self-Titled

Following in the indie tradition of bands like MGMT and Milosh, Portland natives Starfucker combine plunky Casio riffs with slow, barely varied backbeats on their new self-titled album. Though the baseline may be monotonous and traditional song structure nonexistent, there’s something soothing about the constant repetition; combined with the breathy, incomprehensible vocals, it lulls the listener into a kind of synthetic pleasure-coma. The album does have its clever moments: the opening song, “Florida,” ends with a clip of what sounds like Hugh Laurie inquiring about metric measurements, and the clap-beats on “Mike Ptyson” will stick in one’s head for hours. Ultimately, aside from a few noteworthy candidates — the wonderfully discordant “Hard Smart Beta,” for example, or the snarky, seductive “Pop Song” — it’s the sort of album that, for better or for worse, blends together into a dreamy half hour of simple melodies supplemented with the occasional, inexplicable sound-bite of laughing children.