There are few musicians that test the comfortably numb musical landscape of present-day pop music. The mass populace and even the avant elite seem increasingly more satisfied to swallow larger quantities of substandard crap as long as the appropriate fashion qualifications are met and very little mental energy needs to be used to process the music. Atlas Sound is like an ambient war cry against the unfortunate state of contemporary pop.

Atlas Sound was the name of Bradford Cox's first recordable cassette machine. It is also the project moniker that Cox has recorded under since his childhood. On February 19th, Chicago-based Kranky Records will release the full-length debut of Atlas Sound, entitled Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel. According to Cox, the album is one that is meant to heal, which it does with simmering ambient tones, low-in-the-mix existential and introspective lyrics, and a bevy of pop hooks that implant themselves deep inside the mind.

The album's first true song, "Recent Bedroom," taps into vintage shoegaze through the lens of modern digital signal processing. The song's chorus is an emotive and additive mantra that simply repeats the line "I don't know, I don't why." The song "Quarantined" offers up swelling subharmonic bass tones that effectively retrieve childhood memories, which are soon shattered by skittering, chopped rhythms.

For those interested in shattering the walls of predictability that surround the majority of most acts' releases, Atlas Sound offers an exploratory journey through music that is disinterested in what might be thought of it. And as for the intended healing powers of Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, try listening to "Recent Bedrooms" when you cannot help but think of the love that has escaped you; it reduces the pain in one's chest and extinguishes a burning heart.

Audio: Download "Quarantined" here.