Algiers (CD)

The debut LP by Algiers is haunted by promises of the past: the rapturous call and response of millenarian gospel, the bellowing urgency of 60s protest soul, the scene-searching intensity of DC hardcore and the smeared viscosity of post-punk and no wave. After all, as Marx once said: 'The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.' But rather than revel in a state of nostalgia, the band wields these burdened visions to charge headlong into the future.