How The Physical World is approached should be prefaced by the notion that it’s hard to pinpoint whether interest in this album is fuelled by nostalgia, or relevance for the first new DFA 1979 songs since the release of the Toronto duo’s lone LP, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine. That being said, it’s an incredible feat that a band can return from a near-10-year hiatus to pick up exactly where it left off. It should also be noted that there hasn’t been another band in that decade span that has any stake in this distinct distorted bass meets heavy drum sound. Despite the sheen and radio-friendliness that these new songs carry, they contain the energy and immediacy that caused so many people to initially fall in love with Jesse and Sebastien. In some cases this new opportunity is used to expand what now defines Death From Above, with songs like “White Is Red,” which is the closest thing to a slow song the band has ever written. World offers a welcome addition to one of the more small-yet-monolithic catalogues in Canadian indie-rock.

Published in Volume 69, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 17, 2014)