Massachusetts hot messes DOM were blessed and cursed with really being the self-sabotaging slacker romantics conveyed in their scrappy, androgynous synth-psych. In early 2010, they released a near-perfect debut EP, Sun Bronzed Greek Gods, and then the next year they successfully made the jump to Astralwerks with the likewise catchy-as-a-contact-high Family of Love EP. More songs like “Living in America” and “Burn Bridges,” aching anthems that sound ironic only because they’re so earnestly sung, could’ve made them either the next MGMT or the next the Tough Alliance — DOM’s relative disappearance since then suggests they have more in common with the latter late, great Swedish electro-punk obscurities.
Worcester’s snottiest don’t get any more beige on “H o t . l i m i t” (via Stereogum), the annoyingly titled opening track from what the band’s Soundcloud says will be an album called HYPERFANTASY XL. A wordless piece of lush, exhilaratingly scrambled electronic pop, the song hints DOM might be continuing along a similar trajectory to that of TTA-aware Brooklyn pop project Elite Gymnastics. “Any day is a new chance,” those Swedes soothsaid, “a new romance.”
