Kevin Bronson on August 2nd, 2022

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Shoegaze stalwarts Modern Time Machines have returned with their third full-length, tongue-twistingly titled “Practical FX + Physical Media.” It arrives four years after “MTM” and a decade after their debut, “Continuity Girl.” In fact, somewhere in the cobwebs of the Silver Lake venue Spaceland, there surely is a memory of Modern Time Machines, around 2007, playing their early single “Dweeb,” which positioned the band as Silversun Pickups’ sonic third cousins.

Lineups have changed around bandleader Ben Golomb over the years, but his vision for densely layered, pedal-affected rock hasn’t. Modern Time Machines have a few new tricks up their sleeves on the new, Josiah Mazzaschi-produced album– as a whole, it’s dreamier, more meticulous, less reliant on sheer noise no matter how pretty that noise may be.

The album’s general theme is the disappearance of physical media, which is alluded to in the video for “Trigger Finger.” As Under the Radar’s premiere of the video reveals, it’s an homage to the “Twilight Zone” episode, “Stopover in a Quiet Town.”

||| Watch: The videos for “Trigger Finger” and “Somewhere Between”

||| Live: Modern Time Machines celebrate their album release with a show tonight at Zebulon, supported by Tangients and Sisters of Black Mountain. Info.

||| Previously: “High Noon,” “Loveletters,” “Rocketship”