Pitchfork

"You had a plan for your band, but you didn't tell your band, now you're out of the band," mocked Brendan Fowler, aka BARR, on his recent debut album, Beyond Reinforced Jewel Case. Turns out he was actually singing about former Measles Mumps Rubella vocalist Brett Patrick Lyman, who parted ways with the group following disputes about which direction to focus their sound and ambition. New vocalist Chuck Bettis who, like the band's other three members, moved to New York from Washington, D.C., fronted outfits such as the Metamatics, Trance and the Arcade, and All Scars. Bettis's clipped bark-- flickering effortlessly between the frenetic beats and driving sizzle of keyboards-- sounds like a natural addition to the group's ambitious soundscapes, which have become lengthier and more expansive since their last release, Fountain Of Youth (Troubleman).

At times echoing their former label mates Erase Errata, Measles Mumps Rubella flourish in the prickly, disjointed space between instruments, while encouraging fluid patterns to emerge organically from this tension. One of the best examples is on "Hollow Bodies" when an oscillating keyboard rhythm drops down to spar with an anxious, relentlessly fast hi-hat drumbeat. Bettis' vocals also have their own rhythmic quality, and the effective interlock of lyrics and breathless panting and hissing on the album's opening track, "Algorithm Of Desire", creates a dovetailing mayhem of fricative cadences gradually smothered by delay and pools of itchy fuzz.

Although it would be possible to square off Measles Mumps Rubella as another New York dance-punk band snapping at the heels of !!! and Out Hud, there is a dark and almost psychedelic undercurrent to the group's momentum that steers them away from becoming too imitative of that style. Fantastic Success is colored by a compelling energy and determination, and this is where the record's strongest qualities lie. One suspects that Measles Mumps Rubella's relatively slow start in releasing a debut album-- their first 7" came out four years ago, on their own Malady imprint-- and the hurdles overcome in the process of losing a founding member and having to re-track all of Fantastic Success' original vocal lines with Bettis, has much to do with this. There's an audible need in this music-- a desire to release creative ideas left simmering for practical reasons. For this reason, Fantastic Success gleams with an ardent energy that provides the perfect platform for Measles Mumps Rubella's shadowy, polyrhythmic fury.