New York duo Content Blocks have released ‘Hard Out’, their first full-length album, out today through STTT Records.

Matthew Hord and Ian Campbell have both spent years playing in different post-punk projects, and that history is easy to hear here without the record sounding tied to one particular scene. Drum machines, electronics, guitar and synths all have their place, with the songs moving between harder, more direct moments and slower, stranger ones. There is something very New York about the record too, although not in an obvious way. Much of ‘Hard Out’ feels built around repetition, noise, concrete and the constant presence of technology, but there is still plenty of melody underneath it.

The pair pull from industrial music, EBM, synth-pop and more experimental electronic music, though the songs never feel like an exercise in references. At its best, the record simply sounds like two people taking those influences and making something of their own from them.

The album arrives alongside the video for ‘Beach Resort’.