Photo by Tod Seelie

Some bands announce their return with a set of easy money reunion dates, and then there’s Parts & Labor. The sensory-exploding experimental rockers who came to define the Brooklyn DIY underground for the better part of the early 2000s before calling it a day in 2012 when indie culture veered off course for the capitalism of all things are back in full force — now with two drummers! — and a brand new album to justify those hotly anticipated shows.

They didn’t just announce their sixth studio album, Set of All Sets, with just one song, however. They blasted FOUR previews into the universe with the 20-minute, multi-dimensional “Endless Cycle” saga. It was both a lot to process in one sitting so soon, but also a phenomenal way to begin again with a bang where the added energy in Chris Weingarten and Joe Wong dueling double whammy behind their kits sprinting alongside guitarist and synth blisterer Dan Friel and bassist BJ Warshaw celebration noise rock sounded fully recharged, and then some. They’re worth digesting at your own pace.

If you haven’t gotten around to those, no sweat, as they’ve hit us with a new music-concrete collage microdose in the album’s latest preview and mission statement, “Haunted Limbs”. Now that we’ve got five listens off the LP to piece together, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume the reason for their return has something to do with a need to save the underground — and perhaps the world — from itself, as the listen imagines a better place through its surging anthem between circuitry haywires and found field recordings collected from their own domestic bliss rushing into one tributary. “It haunts us like a limb we haven’t grown yet,” Friel’s voice ascends through the squalor. When they sound it off this way, Parts & Labor seem self-aware that they’ve long work to do. Being more than up for the task is also right there in their band name, thankfully.

Parts & Labor’s Set of All Sets will be released July 10th on Ernest Jenning Record Co.