'Echoes' of post-punk and everything else

In the tradition of the Talking Heads, a band has come along with a sound too abrasive for the mainstream and too stunning to dismiss. You'll probably never see The Rapture hamming it up on TRL, but their debut album Echoes is one of the strongest and hardest-to-categorize records to come out this year.\nIs it dance-punk? Post-post-rock? The sometimes smooth and sometimes jarring combination of genres is enough to send an OCD record-store clerk into conniptions. One word, however, summarizes it entirely: impressive.\nThere are brief moments of pure dance on Echoes, but almost as if to toy with the listener's perceptions, those moments quickly slide into brilliant punk noise and pure noise itself. On tracks like "Olio" and the title track, lead singer Luke Jenner starts to sound like John Lydon moaning over everything from an icy piano to an oboe. "House of Jealous Lovers" (probably the strongest track on a very strong album) comes across as a nightmare future where mid-'80s New Order and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs rule the airwaves with an iron fist.\nCarrying on a New York tradition like last year's jaw-droppers Interpol, this record will shock first and grow on listeners later.