After releasing 3 EPs on Quote Unquote Records, Pegasuses XL found a fitting home last year for the release of their full length debut in the arms of the deviant Ernest Jenning Record Co. Now they’re back with more unapologetic sonic mayhem. The opening track (after the intro) is entitled ‘Run the Gaunlet,’ and that is exactly what you do from start to finish. Listening to Electro Agitators is like being tossed through a plate glass window into a bizarre funhouse where you have to watch yourself get beaten with electric guitars from every conceivable angle-and the whole time some wild-eyed lunatic is screaming in your face that your life is meaningless. It’s a ride worth taking. The grainy synths, muddled vocals, and distorted drums all add to the album’s theme of mass confusion. The eye of the storm comes in the disc’s third quarter, where the electro-punk thrashing subsides into more serene (by their standards) ambient tracks with driving beats. There is a definite mastery and direction to the Pegasuses’ chaos. You get the impression that they save the real madness to shake you into a paranoid state of alertness at just the right moments. One of those moments comes on ‘Orchid’ after one of the album’s rare moments of clarity: ‘we can sing until the last oil drum rolls/ national polls dissident with those in control/the man in charge growing closer to the great regreter/ but with no ideas I ain’t any better.’ Then the breakdown commences, and the track collapses into a heap of desperate and confused horns and saxophones. We’re quickly reminded that these guys don’t claim to have the answers, they’re simply crying out for them.

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