Haha Sound

1	Colour Me In 2:51
2	Pendulum 4:21
3	Before We Begin 3:22
4	Valerie 4:04
5	Man Is Not a Bird 4:52
6	Minim 3:00
7	Lunch Hour Pops 3:36
8	Black Umbrellas 1:08
9	Ominous Cloud 3:46
10	Distorsion 2:02
11	Oh How I Miss You 1:17
12	The Little Bell 2:48
13	Winter Now 3:48
14	Hawk 3:42

Barnes & Noble

Broadcast are nominally a rock band, but they layer their guitars and drums with buzzing synthesizers, suggesting a devotion to Kraftwerk and an obsession with sonic texture that belies their songs' magnetic melodies. On their second album, Haha Sound -- a denser, more intricate follow-up to their stunning debut, The Noise Made by People -- the Birmingham, England–based group thrive on the dichotomy between light and dark, which pits Trish Keenan's sweet singing against a wash of dissonant sounds, recalling the Velvet Underground and lesser-known musical heroes the United States of America. "Colour Me In" sets a twisted nursery-rhyme feel for the album, with Keenan's coos riding a wave of warped synths, squawking strings, and keyboards that suggest a toy piano gone awry -- and that vibe carries through to several tracks. On "Valerie," Keenan sings atop acoustic guitar pluckings littered with recurrent buzzing synths and ambient noises, while on the hypnotic "The Little Bell," her vocals ring clear over a minimal rhythm. The psychedelic "Pendulum," however, swings into a darker territory that's more Alice in Wonderland than Little Bo-Peep -- imagine Krautrock-meets-Haight-Ashbury, with synths towering over tinny-sounding guitar work. Broadcast do lighten the tone on a few tracks -- notably the breezy "Before We Begin" and the lulling "Winter Now," one of several to benefit from waves of My Bloody Valentine–like "glide" guitar. But don't be fooled by the childlike quality of Broadcast's singsong melodies: Haha Sound is rife with complex moods and serious themes -- a truly mind-bending exploration of the rock band paradigm in the postmillennial era. Lydia Vanderloo

Entertainment Weekly

Ghostly lullabies a mod mom might have sun to her child in the '60s. (B+) Kristina Feliciano

Blender

Never anything less than enthralling. James Slaughter