Phantogram

Honeyed vocals echo over caverns of black static in Phantogram’s Eyelid Movies. The title of the band’s debut is an apt description of the ethereal, vaguely queasy arrangements that rise and dissipate across the album’s 11 tracks. According to the Saratoga Springs duo, Phantogram is meant to sound like Serge Gainsbourg mixed with Detroit hip-hop. But Eyelid Movies‘ slick street beats sound more like the glacial electro of Burial and recall the inky trickle of the band’s spacey peers the XX (for whom they’re opening on a few later dates). But singer and keyboardist Sarah Barthel’s fuzzy soprano and disaffected melodies cull from the firmly grounded pop sensibilities of Metric’s Fantasies. For a band named after an optical illusion, Phantogram’s grainy, disorienting textures live up to its name, but its songs also give way to a surprisingly polished, streamlined vision.