Norway’s Hammok will release When Does This Place Become Our Scene, their new album, this Friday via Sargent House. Today, they present “Blast Off (Blast Off) Blast Off,” a frenetic single with a lively video to match. “Blast Off (Blast Off) Blast Off” is an album standout, and was the first skeleton key that Tobias Osland wrote by accident. It seemed to arrive out of nowhere, and within a few hours he had a complete demo, driven by a new approach to his guitar-playing — a lacerating lead part that sounds like computers sputtering to life. A strange, alien sound, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a synth instead of a guitar.

Hammok is the trio of vocalist/guitarist Tobias Osland, drummer Ferdinand Aasheim, and bassist Ole Benjamin Thomassen. When Does This Place Become Our Scene is driven by their idiosyncratic blend of pop production and the vivacious energy of hardcore. Throughout, experimental textures fully blossom, placing them on the vanguard of forward-thinking punk. It ranges from tongue-in-cheek ragers to tracks that blend caustic tones with their love for emo and indie.

This is an album that captures polarities of underground intensity and pop sensibility. When Does This Place Become Our Scene is equal parts scream-along cathartic and nod-along infectious.

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