Rating: 3.5/5 
As a follow-up to 2009’s debut LP Fruit, and also following a trio of EPs that largely focused on their bread-and-butter song “The Golden Age,” Out of Frequency continues the Asteroids resurrection of retro; the album cover design looks plucked from a ‘70s B-movie. Despite their relative success, even on their debut album there was a lurking sense that this pony may need to learn more than one trick. All their songs derive from the same horn-heavy and squeaky voice-infused energy of “The Golden Age”— camp and class all rolled into a Technicolor package, but one that begins to look awfully familiar after a while.
The album’s opening is something of a curveball, with a pair of brief second instrumental tracks sounding like Pink Floyd mashed up with the theme from “Family Feud” and serving as bookends to the two-minute quick jab “Dollars in the Night.” The sandwich meat of this three-song salvo features Lindberg’s cartoonish voice at its most shrill. Somehow they pull it off, but from there it’s a mixed bag.
The single “Major” along with “Heart Attack” and the album’s title track all owe their catchiness to the Asteroids signature sound, but don’t tread into any experimental territory, which would have helped temper the band’s misfires. With “Cloak and Dagger,” Lindberg’s voice sounds so pubescent and atonal that it calls to mind the image of someone taking a ball peen hammer to a pillowcase full of bunnies. Blasts from the brass section and uninteresting drum and bass backing do little to shake the specter of a gimmicky band running out of ideas. “Arrival of the Empress (Prelude)” overreaches with the forced exoticism of a choral-humming intro joined by the heavy support from backup vocals and dithering keys. The song is meant to groove and get all trippy and atmospheric, but instead it’s another interchangeable entry that never sets itself apart from the din.
But just as the Asteroids seem to have drifted hopelessly off course, “Ghost in My Head” brings Out of Frequency back down to earth with a brass fury and climactic, echoing chorus that finally sounds like something different. “Suburban Space Invader” (in keeping with the band’s ludicrously labeled tracks) really breaks the mold, utilizing Lindberg’s caterwauling with the proper balance of backup vocals as she wails, “Suburban space invaders/ They suck your soul/ They be messin’ with your brain/ Suburban space invaders/ Now you’re hot and cold/ And you’ll never be the same.” Cascading keys trickle down a chorus with bass lines and programmed percussion that call to mind MGMT at their most indie funkadelic. It’s by far the standout track on this album, if only for breaking up the high octane homogeneity.
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour don’t appear to take themselves too seriously, but they aren’t shooting for punch lines either. With a blend of visually evocative lyrics that touch on everything from Martians to myocardial infarction, they tightrope the razor thin line between kitsch and art. By adding a new tint to well-worn pop cultural artifacts in an effort to craft something new, they’re the musical equivalent of an Andy Warhol painting. Acquired taste or not, there’s nobody else quite like them.
