The Unnatural World

Connecticut-based band Have a Nice Life has a lot riding on their latest release. It’s been nearly six years since their debut, the ambitious double concept album “Deathconsciousness.”

That’s not to say the duo hasn’t been keeping busy.

In addition to releasing a live DVD, a four-song EP and a collection of demos and B-sides, frontman Dan Barrett continues to run his Enemies List label while putting out a steady stream of solo releases.

These most notably include 2011’s excellent solo LP “Giles Corey” and a series of electropop singles in 2013 under the Black Wing moniker.

Those concerned that Barrett’s recent folk and pop stylings would make this record any less of a dismal, eardrum-shattering powerhouse need not fear.

Have a Nice Life’s latest record, “The Unnatural World,” is a cavernous post-punk, shoegaze hybrid.

Think Faith-era Cure, plus Alcest, minus the black hair and nail polish, and you wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

The lead single “Defenestration Song” packs all the anger and bitterness into its six-minute run time you would expect from a song whose title tells you to hurl things out of a window.

“Music Will Untune the Sky” begins as a mind-numbing drone that blossoms into a beautiful, almost triumphant, cascade of feedback and reverb.

A lurching, Joy Division-esque bass riff propels “Dan and Tim, Reunited by Fate” through a sparse intro before waves of lo-fi synth and warped tremolo guitar chords drown the track in a suffocating murk that stands starkly against the song’s ridiculous — even embarrassing — title.

“The Unnatural World” is a more mature record than its predecessor.

Gone is the amateur production, absurd concepts and oddball pop sensibilities that hindered the second disc of “Deathconsciousness.”

That said, maturity isn’t the most important factor when it comes to punk rock.

By refusing to tap into the juvenile melodrama they wallowed in back in 2008, Have a Nice Life has crafted an album that lacks the bizarre but undeniably brilliant effect.  

A recurring theme in the band’s debut disc was that of the early North American plains — massive, strange and powerful.

These eight songs still create a sonic landscape that begs to be explored.

But this time, the plow’s already broken the fields, and the horizons have been brought miles closer.