Disappears

Even if we limit its contributions to Chess Records and house music, Chicago's big shoulders have borne the weight of some legendary musical foundations. Yet, despite the intensive labors of producer/ ideologue Steve Albini and the legendary indie Touch + Go Records, punk doesn't sit too near the top of the city's extensive export list. Is it coincidental, then, that Chicago's best hope to change this state of affairs is named Disappears?

Helmed by Chicago scene veteran Brian Case (of stellar local bands The Ponys and 90 Day Men), and represented by the city's hippest label, Kranky, Disappears trade in a pummeling brand of drone rock that sends listeners scrambling through their libraries, sorting through possible predecessors. Indeed, if you take the band's Twitter bio ("Music for Record Collectors") at its word, they owe more to the city's legendary vinyl shops—Reckless and Laurie's Planet of Sound, for examples—than any particular local musical tradition.

Take "Pearly Gates," from the band's 2010 debut Lux, or the 15-minute epic "Revisiting" from 2011's Guider, and try to stop yourself at one or two benchmarks. The vocals split the difference between the nasal yelp of proto-punk icon Jonathan Richman and the detached British wit of post-punk Mark E. Smith. The guitar squall is straight-up Sonic Youth (whose drummer Steve Shelley is a big enough fan that he joined the band; he'll be with them at Hopscotch). The music's main selling point—a propulsive, droning rhythm section—casts its glance backwards to the Velvet Underground and sidelong to any number of Krautrock bands (Can, Faust, Neu!), as well as those grungy longhairs in Crazy Horse. But Disappears doesn't vanish under the weight of their admitted influences; rather, they stir them into a heady brew that's wholly their own. Chicago may never be a punk town, but its insatiable community of rock geeks can claim these guys as their own. —Eric Harvey