Listen: Album Review: Ghostland Observatory - Robotique Majestique at Pretty Much Amazing! The Music Blog

Don't Forget to Enter our Latest Contest! PMA is giving away 6 Mixtape Flash Drives!

The title is right: Ghostland Observatory’s latest is both robotic and majestic. With a mix of blaring synthesizers, propulsive beats and strapping vocals, the Austin, Texas, duo creates clattering electro-rock songs with a warm, beating heart on its latest.

Producer and drummer Thomas Turner has a fondness for sweeping soundscapes jammed full of jittery electronics and tangled rhythm — three different beats tumble over each other like bear cubs wrestling on “HFM,” for example — while singer-guitarist Aaron Behrens alternately delivers charismatic big-rock vocals or sounds like he’s writhing in a cold puddle.

Shiny electric piano cuts a clean swath through guttural buzzing on “Freeheart Lover” as Behrens projects his voice to the nosebleed seats of an imaginary arena. He dials up the histrionics on “Heavy Heart,” sounding as though he’s on the verge of a tantrum, and is entirely absent on the first track, “Opening Credits,” which features organ swelling over crisscrossing streams of ambient noise on what amounts to a grandiose introduction to the album.

And why not? Robotique Majestique is compelling and eminently danceable, and it has as much visceral kick as cerebral appeal for the indie dance kids who demand both.

by Eric R. Danton