lucky styles, the third full-length effort from They Are Gutting a Body of Water, realizes the Philly experimental band’s most wildest yet appeasing impulses in one sitting. Now that his past life in Jouska has been formally put behind him, you can hear where leader Doug Dulgarian’s creative limits (or lack there of…) further expand, with the listen multiplying on a certain kind of strange energy stretching its way throughout the underbellies of Philly and New York indie rock scenes where the likes of peers Hotline TNT and Spirit of the Beehive are smashing together textures of static-washed shoegaze, electronic-speckled zone-outs, and noise-pop over dreamy overtures and post-hardcore aggression. The imagery Dulgarian depicts in word and sound alongside guitarist PJ Carroll, drummer Ben Opatut and bassist Emily Lofing is oft far-off obtuseness, like that of a dream you can’t quite vividly understand or make out. You can’t but help want to return to it upon breaking into lucidity, because the brainwaves TAGaBoW render is something much more adventurous than our waking life.

Highlights: “kmark amen break”, “violence ii’, “delta p”

They Are Gutting a Body of Water’s lucky styles is available now on Smoking Room.

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