(picture from Matadorrecords.com)Melbourne, Australia's Love of Diagrams have been creating wonderful post-punk for more than five years, but only with this year's Mosaic have people outside that particular continent gotten a real chance to hear them. Theirs is a style that combines the darkness and minimalism of Joy Division with the energy and chops of Mission of Burma, with the added touch of male/female call-and-response vocals. The end result is bleak, technical, thrilling, and mysterious art punk. Although this sound occasionally resembles now-defunct South Carolina art school hardcore merchants From Safety to Where, Love of Diagrams' sound is truly their very own creation. One could call thier lyrics derivative or unoriginal: Most of them consist of relentlessly repeated Ian Curtis/Paul Banks-style buzz-phrases concerning emotional distance with a profusion of words that frequently end in "-tion" sounds. However, the lyrics really aren't the point, here. While the content is derived from the aforementioned dour sources, the approach is more like the Ramones or the early phase of the Beatles' work: The vocals are meant to function like another instrument, and the lyrics mearly stand in so that the vocalists have something to sing. Seeing as how the mood of the music is gloomy and enigmatic, they fairly typical post-punk lyrics serve their purpose and match that mood well.Another thrilling element of the band's sound as how many different sounds and feelings they can conjure from the same building blocks of Luke Horton's wailing , noisy guitar, Antonia Sellbach's thundering, punchy and melodic bass, and Monika Fikerle's energetic, quirky drumming, in addition to vocal contributions from all three at various points. On Mosaic, the band shows they are adept at speedy, thrashy rave ups like "The Pace or the Patience" and "Trouble," queasy grooves like "The Pyramid," and "All The Time," eerie short-form peices like the instrumental "Interlude" and the unlisted bonus track, and complex, dynamic-shifting art rock like "At 100%" and "Confrontation." Mosaic stands to become a modern classic, and heralds the arrival of a band with a very bright future.Love of Diagrams:Antonia Sellbach-Bass, vocalsLuke Horton-Guitar, vocalsMonika Fikerle-Drums, VocalsYou can download tracks from their "page on Matador Records":http://www.matadorrecords.com/love_of_diagrams/