***1/2 Unwound

CHALLENGE FOR A CIVILIZED SOCIETY

(Kill Rock Stars)

On their last two albums, Future of What and Repetition, Washington's Unwound (they're from Tumwater) introduced aesthetic innovation to American postpunk, primarily through electronic embellishments and the occasional dubby break. But both albums still functioned like most punk rock albums -- as documents of live performances that just happened to take place in the recording studio. With Challenge for a Civilized Society, Unwound acknowledge the CD as an entity in and of itself by subjecting their Joy-Division-by-way-of-Black-Flag-and-Fugazi squall to the same approach dub-music pioneers adopted when melding live musicians with studio-produced noise. The powerful result, best heard on "Side Effects of Being Tired," is a very physical form of rock that subtly slips into digitally produced sonic loops and then back, once again, to physical guitar rock.

-- Justin Farrar