The Forms spent 50 consecutive days in Chicago recording their new self-titled album with Steve Albini, a feat that tested the will, sanity and pocketbook of the Brooklyn-based band. But the result is a record that expands on the melodic post-rock experiments of the Forms' daring 2003 debut, Icarus. The Forms retains much of the same odd time-signature looping but leads most of the instrumentation down a much smoother path, leaving room to showcase the more accessible facets of the music — tuneful vocal passages, tasteful piano, hypnotic patches of vintage synth. The Forms convincingly channel the early post-hardcore attacks of underground acts from D.C. and the Midwest while still making a refreshing and relevant musical statement all their own.
