Photo by Zach Canning

“All Expectations” is very rich of a song title coming from a band like Force Model, considering you don’t ever really know what you can expect coming out from the collective creative brain of the Los Angeles rockers . Last year, the trio of vocalist and guitarist Edie Vogel, bassist Maxwell Moore, and drummer Ken Arimura struck a buzzworthy chord for the discordant with their debut album, Found Camera, on the premise of unpredictability. That listen made it entirely difficult to pin them down into one cohesively defined shape or sound. You heard the collective energies of white belt-influenced art-core, highly combustible noise rock, and just enough amorphous shoegaze bleeding feedback through the volatility. When they returned later that year with the single, “Crossed Off”, they were toying with jangle-pop, emotive indie rock, and alt-rock transcendence. That said, the lead single off the band’s forthcoming EP, Barricade, sets expectations cleverly at a slack that ultimately surpasses whatever preconceived notion you had going into it. “Look what you did / You inadequate kid / Sold yourself but no one bid / Get so tired from sleeping in,” sings Vogel, verses gazing and dazing into a classic power-pop chorus. As the listen steers closer into focus, so does the electricity. One minute they’re 15 and indignant. The next, they’re a sobbing adult mess, but at least they’ve cleaned up better than you could have imagined.

Force Model’s Barricade will be released June 20th on Bug Body.