Blackout Gorgeous

Once upon a time, there was a Kansas City band called Invisible Sea. I saw them at Davey’s — a guy and a girl singer (both looked terrified to be onstage) and a keyboard player with a big, black, curly mane of hair who was totally into it but whose instruments were inaudible. But wonders never cease in Cowtown. From Invisible Sea’s receding tide has emerged Blackout Gorgeous. The band’s debut, Tragic Logic, brings the same lineup (which also includes drums, bass and guitar) but a completely new and ambitiously complex sound, inspired by what must have been a nocturnal, in-studio visit from the ghost of Miles Davis. Now the band is fully in step with the atmospheric electronica of Jeremy “Nezbeat” Nesbitt, and the two singers — Erin Keller, with her disembodied, soulful siren calls, and Tim Wurtz, with his rough-around-the-edges sincerity — sound like they were born to harmonize.

This hefty, 13-track disc is a study in groove and paranoia, mostly down-tempo but heavy on the time changes, a pyramid of ear candy and melancholia. It’s one of the most sonically adventurous albums to come out locally in some time.

But, provided the group’s core holds together, Tragic Logic is not going to be the band’s masterpiece. Blackout Gorgeous has yet to strike a balance between chilling rock ponderousness and more compelling trippy jazz cleverness, which surfaces only at moments. It will also be interesting to see whether Gorgeous has dug itself into a studio hole. Wurtz’s simple, elegant guitar is always present and always cool, but the other kids in the band better grow a couple more arms and heads each to pull off these songs live.