Last year, Dead Hand System circulated demo versions of Project Darwin. Recently, they finished re-recording more fully realized versions of their noisy, strangely beautiful psychedelia. The new version still shows the influence of My Bloody Valentine in its feedback and guitar textures, but techno aesthetics have also rubbed off, giving the pieces an industrial rumble that is intermittently danceable.

Typical of the album is “formula,” which begins with a bed of found, treated sound—a street scene, maybe, but the sound has been through too many processors by now to be recognizable—over which a melody line snakes, but it isn’t clear that it’s being played on Nigel Wiesehan’s guitar, though it is. It sounds like a keyboard except for the feedback moments that give the origin away. Their prog-rock background can be heard in the simulated mellotron, while Doug Idleman bass rumbles menacingly underneath. Four minutes into the instrumental track, Marcus London starts a pounding, faux-tribal drum pattern amid a hailstorm of melodic feedback fragments, and the piece then moves with metal density and—once again—prog stateliness to the fade. It isn’t everyone’s flavor, but it’s very attractive in its way.

This version of Project Darwin closes a chapter for Dead Hand System in that they will no longer be an all-instrumental band. New vocalist James Watson can be heard on “Founder,” the final track, which is promising but suffers from a quiet vocal mix. The disc also features two live tracks recorded at the Howlin’ Wolf that demonstrate the band can be really heavy, but since there are better-sounding versions of the same songs on the disc, it’s unlikely you’ll listen to them more than once or twice.