Mass Shivers

A wave of African influence has swept through the underground: Indie labels signed Afrobeat bands like Antibalas and Extra Golden, while avant-garde acts such as Animal Collective and Sub Pop’s feverishly hyped Foals openly weave sub-Saharan sounds into their art-rock. The trend spills into the mainstream, too, with preppy Vampire Weekend’s Cape Cod kwassa kwassa climbing the charts and Coldplay—perhaps the whitest band in the world—describing an upcoming song as “Afropop.”

The idea is nothing new, as Paul Simon and Talking Heads have proved. The notion of marrying metronomic dance rhythms to progressive rock kick-started even further back with ’70s German groups like Can. One thing is certain: If you’re going to do justice to this influence, you’d better have a phenomenal drummer. Fortunately, Chicago’s Mass Shivers keep an absolute beast on beats: Sean Wilke stabs his snares and mallets his toms like Vishnu working an assembly line. His battering allows the power trio to work sweat-drenched polyrhythms into balls-deep dude rock. It’s highlife meets High Life.

The group’s sophomore effort keeps a tricky equilibrium, as tracks like “Womanizing Metal Studs” and “Mossy Nethers” balance the tick-tock picking and punctuating horns of soukous with the tongue-in-cheek teenage kicks of AC/DC. So when the boys burst into shouts and chants, it could be either ritualistic release or the rush of a Camaro shooting off a dirt ramp. Which is why Mass Shivers get it right: This isn’t academics; it’s groove.

Mass Shivers play Empty Bottle Friday 4.