Telepathe: Dance Mother

Three years ago, Telepathe—the New York City duo of Busy Gangnes and Melissa Livaudais—released an EP titled Farewell Forest that fit into the shaky, lo-fi mode of Animal Collective-style indie. Now they’ve put together an album that’s almost like the EP’s exact opposite: a shimmering ode to ’80s electro and, in the case of “Can’t Stand It,” Cocteau Twins-style proto-shoegaze. Produced by David Andrew Sitek of TV On The Radio, Dance Mother has a few bright spots: the para-diddling drums at the beginning of “In Your Line” give it a real open-air sweep, the song itself is straightforward and affecting, and “Devil’s Trident” features buzzy synthesizers that open up a bracing, jittery mood. But most of the rest isn’t all that engrossing: A chorus like the one from “Chrome’s On It” (“We can do the real bang-bang”) might get stuck in your head for a while, but most of the rest just pass through, and sometimes, as on “Lights Go Down,” they verge on tedious.