At a recent social event, I had the pleasure of running into a high-level Undress Me Robot editor. After exchanging greetings, we engaged in customary party small talk before jumping into a short discussion of current musical trends. I used the opportunity to gauge his feelings of Rings, a New York-based band formerly known as First Nation, on Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label. While comparing the music of Rings and Animal Collective, my editor friend insisted Rings were “more New York” than Animal Collective. The conversation ended soon after and I have been attempting to decifer his cryptic inference ever since.

Whatever one’s interpretation is of what makes a band “New York,” this measuring stick is not the most useful tool to define Rings. Their sound and aesthetic, described by the band as “circular patchworked tranced feminist compositions,” looks back toward the tribal rhythms of The Pop Group and the playfulness of the Slits and Le Tigre (albeit with drum machines replaced by wooden sticks). One can’t help but hear Kathleen Hanna’s voice on the upper registers of “Mom Dance” and “Is He Handsome.” Rings’ sparse primitive beats and three-part harmonies are cut with a lo-fi rough edge compared to their New York compatriots’ Uptown (or Downtown? Brooklyn?) production.

Each song careens through stretches of melody and chaos, weaving through ambient pianos and light percussion into a melee of distorted vocals, tense drums and looped digital treatments. On “Scape Aside,” this tension builds to a crescendo, creating the most cohesive energy out of their free-form experiments.

Would the “Animal Collective treatment” of a more polished, controlled chaos benefit Black Habit? Rings thrives on their primitive, non-musical tendencies and relies on sparse arrangements to construct an atmosphere of intimacy. A glossy sheen might not be the answer, but the album sounds best when distortion and harmony sit tightly next to each other. Rings may not be “more New York” than any of their other indie brethren, even if Black Habit sounds as if it was conceived in a cramped downtown apartment. The hope is one day they will be too frenzied and loud to continue to create there.

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