Depreciation Guild Make Pretty Noise in New York

On its final song Thursday night at New York City's Le Poisson Rouge, the Depreciation Guild went international, welcoming Aadne Meisfjord, keyboardist for the Norwegian noise-pop quintet Serena-Maneesh, into its fold.

The two bands had been on the road together since late March, and Depreciation Guild frontman Kurt Feldman called the tour, which wrapped Thursday, the best of his Brooklyn band's career.

"We feel like we're best friends," Feldman said of his new Scandinavian buddies.

Feldman and his bandmates, twin siblings Christoph and Anton Hochheim, the guitarist and drummer, respectively, liked Meisfjord enough to let him take the place of their beloved Macbook, which, for much of the set, served as the Guild's unofficial fourth member.

Not surprisingly, the Norwegian showed better stage presence. He rocked on his heels and played a shimmering synth lead, ratcheting up the drama on 'Dream About Me,' a tune from the Guild's forthcoming -- and quite excellent -- sophomore album, 'Spirit Youth.' Meisfjord's notes didn't quite drive the tune, but only because Feldman and the Hochheims opted to feed their noise jones, burying the melody in construction-site guitars and jackhammer drums.

The mix of beauty and brutality recalled the Raveonettes, a coed Danish duo whose male half, Sune Rose Wagner, Spinner spied walking through the crowd just prior to the Guild's midnight performance.

Whereas the Raveonettes do noir versions of rockabilly and '60s Phil Spector pop, crafting music that would work in a David Lynch film, the Guild's is more of a John Hughes aesthetic. That late teen-comedy director's name surfaces in much of today's indie-rock criticism, often in connection with artists like M83 and the Maryonettes, but in the Guild's case, the reference is especially warranted, even when the band is at its most aggressive.

The ferocity of Thursday's performance marked something of a contrast to 'Spirit Youth,' an album that relies less on distortion and jarring 8-bit electronics than did its predecessor, 'In Her Gentle Jaws,' the Guild's 2008 debut. Like 'Dream About Me,' such new tunes as 'My Chariot' and 'Crucify You' reflected a poppier approach, their airy synths harking back to what, oddly enough, may be the disc's sonic template: the 1985 Level 42 hit 'Something About You.'