Following on from their EP Lick My Spaceship released last year, the new album marks Millie Lovelock (guitar, vocals) and Isaac Hickey's shift into more hostile and less buoyant sonic territory.
Awash with literary references and rife with caustic energy, the album is more song-focused with tighter structures and Lovelock singing more and screaming less.
''I have put more focus on lyrics this time around,'' Lovelock said. ''I think we've settled in more as a band and I am more comfortable with how I come up with lyrics. I've also done a lot of reading this year. I'm more interested in words now, I think.''
Lovelock's heavy reading load shows up in the album's title with James Joyce having dominated the first six months of her year.
''The name [Proteus] comes from the third episode of Ulysses, by James Joyce. Proteus is the old man of the sea in Greek mythology,'' she tells me.
''[In the episode] Stephen Dedalus, who kind of represents Joyce, is having an existential crisis on a beach in Dublin. He's trying to understand the nature of time and perceptions of reality and it's basically tearing him apart. The sea comes up a lot in what I read.''
The album's dark basement-wash production was handled by Adrian Ng (Mavis Gary), with whom Lovelock also performs in pop trio Trick Mammoth.
''Adrian is really relaxed to work with and he seems to pretty much know how things should sound, which makes it really easy for us,'' Lovelock said.
Angsty, anthemic, and powerful, the album's lead single Nora Barnacle (named for Joyce's wife and muse) with its brutal vocal coda of ''Does it offend you?'' has even won the praise of Nirvana associate and journalist Everett True.
Does it offend you? It really shouldn't.
Proteus is available from Tuesday via Muzai Records.
• After a year of car crashes and mad cross-country dashes; studio-late nights and dawn-driving mornings; long-distance missives and close-quartered friction, Luckless gathers their wits for their year-end tour of New Zealand.
This year has seen songwriter and guitarist Ivy Rossiter wearing out her tyres up and down the country, playing solo shows from Fiordland to Northland and everywhere in between. Through drought and floods, snowstorms and norwesters, new songs have flourished and the audiences have grown, leaving Luckless with an arsenal of fresh grief and glory-borne material to perfect and perform.
The Drums & Dust tour offers audiences the opportunity to savour the Luckless experience, with Rossiter's guitar soaring and driving at turns, all within a show ranging from blissful light to bombastic dark.
Be there
• Astro Children album release at Chick's Hotel (Velvet Worm Brewery pint night), Thursday, November 14, free entry from 9pm. Chick's Magic Bus leaves Countdown Central at 8.30pm, and the university library at 8.35pm. It returns to town around 1am. Free to ride with 2013 Onecard (available on the bus).
• The Drums & Dust by Luckless tour stops off at Chick's Hotel, Dunedin, on Saturday, November 16, and at The Penguin Club, Oamaru, the following day. Support for both shows from Matt Langley. Tickets available from www.undertheradar.co.nz.
