Mica Levi’s exuberant avant-pop combo are back, and they’re as ingenious as ever.

Micachu And The Shapes – who also feature deadpan singer/producer and RBMA graduate Raisa K among their ranks – have been knocking around since about 2008, when they charmed all and sundry with the shuffling ‘Golden Phone’. New album Never is the band’s first full-length since 2009’s great Jewelery, a precocious set of slanted skronk-pop.

If anything, the new record is even scuzzier than its predecessor. Cobbled together on primitive kit and a host of homemade instruments, Never does a brilliant job of negotiating the melody/lunacy tightrope – it’s always odd, but rarely obtuse. It’s a record that assimilates a panoply of influences (cf her brilliant recent Kwesachu mixtape with partner-in-crime Kwes) without being beholden to any of them. You can stream the record in full here. [via Playground]

Never is out on Rough Trade on July 23.