Out of Africa

Don't let their pedigree fool you: Triclops! Turns the dial down on the bellicose Punk/Hardcore you might expect, instead opting for meandering yet tension-filled Psychedelic epics. The seven songs on Out of Africa, their first full-length, are reminiscent of the golden hits from the 1990s Touch and Go or Amphetamine Reptile catalogs, tweaked out on the exhilarating paranoia typical of America in the early aughts. Songs unfurl into worlds of their own with byzantine lyrics-the lament of an Iraqi museum curator in one, an ode to the botfly (a tropical parasite) in another-while the music explores variations in tone and urgency. Sci-fi bristles with cautionary tales of gene-splicing and it's freakish consequences, but in an Alternative Tentacles tome, 'freakish' is a desirable trait. Triclops!, a result of SF Bay Area inter-band splicing.