Rearranged Face

***""L.A.’s Rearranged Face is back with the follow-up to 2021’s A Rare Caged Fern 12”, giving their anxious, art-fractured racket only slightly more room to unwind this time around. Far Green Arcade features eleven tracks jammed out fully econo, a frenetic blur of whirring and beeping keys, taut rubber band bass, bee-in-bonnet vocals, and urgently bashed beats, dished out in mostly sub-two-minute increments, never overstaying their welcome. The band’s basic approach is still a jumpy mix of Devo-descended wiggly world rhythms (“Another Mystery” and “Blink of an Eye” are especially devolved), hip-swinging early ’00s post-punk revival sass (the hiccuping floor-burner “Serpentstone”), and the synth-flecked bounce of early new wave (before that became a completely loaded term). But rather than merely stitching those asymmetrical scraps into another by-the-numbers genre pastiche, Rearranged Face bring a restless energy and genuine weirdo creativity to their twitchy sound, crafting something that’s authentically their own while still lovingly citing touchstones from the past—the new wave of new wave."—Erika Elizabeth (MRR/Domestic Departure/Collate)