Something soft? From the confrontational queer Irish band M(h)aol? The ones who got our attention, early on, with noisy, fritzed out guitars and the repeated line “No one ever talks to us…unless they want to fuck,” from “Talks to Us” on the EP Gender Studies and again on the debut Attachment Styles? Who chanted “I’m so bored…of talking about me,” over a pummeling, pounding drum beat as shrieks of fuzz-addled guitars zoomed in like projectiles? Count us skeptical.
And yet, here we are, with the first album on Merge, and drummer Constance Keane is damn near whispering in opening salvo “Pursuit.” It’s a tense, taut cut, paced by the anxious patter of sticks on rims, firebombed, at intervals, by the buzz of amp static, but noticeably quieter than…