The Wildildlife

Wildildlife's Six is one of the best records to come out last year. I love its textured mash of beastly howls, sci-fi swells, and ingenious experiments (like the creepy "Whooping Church" chorus of plastic bags catching fire and band members blowing into glass bottles.) "Nervous Buzzing" is both the name of the album's 14-minute finale and an appropriate description for a sound that's droning and driven, meditative and monstrous. The trio skitters around experimental electronic, dreampop, and heavy metal touchstones with great finesse. Wildildlife moved from the Bay Area to Seattle earlier this year, but returns to perform with the equally excellent acid rockers Mammatus.