Words by Richard MacFarlane

For all the recent frenzied post-punk aesthetes gnarling the choruses and skittering the riffs, this Amsterdam/Canada duo lock it down pretty tight; when the low synths buzz in half way into opener ‘Ha Ha Ha’ the messy-haired sinister feelings get even wilder. But the dissonant moods are scattered way further across this frenzied 12-track debut and seem to have their own stab at this inverse disco-inflected punk, drilling weird synths through Liars-style terrains and keeping the dance energies high with carefully structured jams. ‘I Lie’ is all shadowy tom drum repetitions before bringing extra kicks to un-stilt the metronomic rhythms. Elsewhere, Shellac/My Disco-esque shreddage wavers all through, building that recognisable tension with a scruffy edge, sometimes loosening the fairly masculine rock grip with more emotive/airy vocals and less minor melodies. And even if those chords can at times come off monochromatically, it’s definitely a virtue; and with the additional electro crunches providing skewed colours and with guitar distortions coming out with various scungy textures, it sounds oblique and actually pretty fun beneath all the grey mechanics. Moi Non Plus are making interesting revisions in carving their own slice of dark punk across these 12 subtly diverse and quietly experimental songs.

(Subbaculcha, 2009)