The Race: Ice Station

Extended ice metaphors in frigid, digital post-punk There's a new one. Yes, technology is cold, our hearts are cold, and—as Joy Division warned us 30 years ago—we're living in an ice age. The Race's Craig Klein, abetted primarily by Telefon Tel Aviv's Josh Eustis, set out to make Ice Station a theme album full of Siberian imagery, refrigerated synths, and frostbitten strumming. They succeeded, but the result is so immaculate and calculated, it might as well be embalmed. There's no denying all the sculpted hooks or Klein's shivering, lonely moan, and the disc does thaw a bit around the middle, specifically in the songs "Walls" and "Evil Dove." But even at its warmest, Station just feels like slush.