I’ve only heard one “real” Enon album, 2002’s High Society. Unfortunately, this means my Enon theory may be horribly flawed from the word Go!; knowing little about Hocus Pocus except what I’ve read from reviews, it’s entirely possible the most recent Enon album debunks the whole basis of this post. But as I’m not a music journalist and have no need for things like “fact-checking” and “accuracy,” I’ll press on nonetheless.

If there’s a fatal flaw to High Society, it’s that the album is so resolutely split between two different approaches. The Enon I first heard and liked was the Enon of “Knock That Door” and “Disposable Parts”—in other words, the groovetastic electronic pop anchored by the vocals of former Blonde Redhead-er Toko Yasuda. But upon first listen to the entirety of High Society a second Enon surfaced alongside the first: the more-straightforward indie rock stylings of founder John Schmersal. And though tracks like “Old Dominion” aren’t exactly bad, they do seem entirely removed from the plastic fantastic world of the other Enon. Only near the end of the album do the streams cross, and even then the melding is incomplete: “Natural Disasters” has Yasuda throwing in some background vocals, but the track as a whole still sounds more like Schmersal’s half of the album. “Carbonation” and “Salty” throw in more electronics and more Yasuda before Schmersal returns to anchor the final two tracks. All in all, there’s a tantalizing glimpse of what would happen once the relatively new Yasuda was able to collaborate more fully with the rest of Enon.

Reviews suggest Hocus Pocus didn’t do much to bridge the chasm, but since I’ve only heard selected tracks from it and b-sides comp Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence, I couldn’t tell you from personal experience. What I can tell you is the first track from the upcoming Grass Geysers… Carbon Clouds represents the next leap forward in uniting Enon’s split personalities. Though “Mirror On You” is less than two minutes long, there’s lots of fuzz-bass hip-shaking and handclap beat-making to go around. And unlike Yasuda’s background contributions on High Society, her vocals are essential here—a chorus of reverbed Yasudas is not to be trifled with.