Propulsive and sprawling from the get-go, Focus Group don’t take long to get comfortable on Theories. Bursting open with ‘The Dentist’, we’re immediately hit with a wall of charged guitars and terse organ as a driving groove thunders underneath. Instantly commanding without feeling overbearing, vocalist Tim Eilenberg sits up front with his enigmatic voice, his sung-spoken vocals directing the song as the band careens around him. While ‘The Dentist’ is a striking introduction to the band, ‘Rooster’ shifts the mood towards something darker. Ominous and disconcerting, the track builds around a grimy chug as Tim sneers and yelps amongst waves of abrasive guitar.

As Theories sprawls onwards, Focus Group continue to flitter between these two sides of themselves - either wrestling with slower, unsettling post-punk atmospheres or diverting into driving, almost krautrock-y, sonic blitzes. Where ’Cold War’ is synth-heavy and menacing, and ‘Freak Zone’ is aggravated and punchy, tracks like ‘Imaginary Friend’ and ‘Value 20’ pull back to ebb and flow around Tim’s weighty lyrics. Speaking about the writing of Theories, Tim shares “it was an album that had songs that were constantly re-written, music scrapped, stylistically changed, because it had been written over the course of a few years with no real idea of what the final product would look like. It was also an incredibly trying process writing lyrics and finding a voice. I’d never been a vocalist or lyrics writer  before and I didn’t know how I wanted the themes to be portrayed.”

Rounding out the album, ’Trolls’ amasses everything Focus Group do best on Theories - the chaotic tangles of guitar, the incessant grooves that pump across the entire album and Tim’s call-to-arms vocals. Crucially though, it remains apparent that Focus Group aren’t the band to easily remove their cards from their chest, so as the final wall of sound bleeds out to wrap things up, we’re left invigorated and hungry for more.