Chronophage’s third LP is a scarcely anticipated revelation full of poise and delicacy. Tough, tender, precise and unconstrained, it concentrates the tragic ingredients of the past two years into ten songs. Each one is a decisive, well-cut crystal: sharp, clear, weighted. Can you envision a midpoint between Big Star and the Homosexuals? Imagine Nick Lowe constructing defiant rejections of the civil structure? Chronophage’s unconstrained melodies and gleefully imaginative structures enact such original, liberatory music.

Chronophage began five years ago in Austin, Texas. Stout participants in the transgressive DIY punk community patchworked throughout the world, the band have released two LPs and a handful of cassettes, always demonstrating a kind of risk-taking that feels both gleeful and dire. It’s clear that they delight in making hard, unexpected decisions, but there’s a colder sense that their existence depends on this daring.