by Ned RaggettOn his third album, John Maus continues his pursuit of immediacy-in-action mixed with a certain calm, developing a further tension that infuses both his music and words. The immediately cheery lead synth sparkle of the opening Streetlight contrasts with both the melancholic background tones and his heavily echoed singing, suggesting above all else an uneasy joy in the moment, as if everything were being celebrated under a microscope or through gun sights. For all the '80s-redux claims often pushed in his direction, Maus' looming dread is much different from the nuke\u002FAIDS paranoia of the time -- there's a sense of a new kind of rage against a dying of the light, a reaction against entropy. Whenever something starts seems sweetly winsome or romantic, as ...And the Rain does (in its title alone almost directly referencing the early solo work of John Foxx), something else slides in to cause a darker cloud to bubble up -- in that song's case, it could be the wordless vocal breaks, but that's one … Read more