After a five-year anticipatory build-up, Serena-Maneesh are most definitely back. They played a staggering set at Mercury Lounge Friday night, the precursor to a U.S. tour they’ve announced today which you should hit if you’re into having your face melted. (This girl knows what I’m talking about.) They’re promoting the forthcoming S-M 2: Abyss In B Minor. Its sound isn’t as ponderous as its title, but it does reflect their ambition. Aside from the unexpected but entirely welcome hint of an industrial edge here/there (see for instance the menacing and propulsive album-opening vamp “Ayisha Abyss“), it’s a more extreme version of the blueprint drawn for their self-titled debut — a more finely composed sequel. B Minor might be the consistent key, but the rhythmic backdrops keep shifting. When posting a live clip of S-M 2’s MBV-piggybacking “Reprobate,” I called the 2005 record a set of “stormy, black magical clatter and pillowy shoegaze guitars tied to moments of sublime release … a sort of gaze-pop fission where dissonant clamor and pop are two sides of the same coin.” The new MP3 from S-M 2 strikes that vein — it’s a love song, a bright melody wrapped in warped guitars that curl in every direction, airy and insistently paced before crashing into climactic overdriven crunch. Have it:

• Serena-Maneesh – “I Just Want To See Your Face”Download

I’m glad they’re offering so many disparate advance listens of the album; their influences may be apparent, but so is the push to flesh them out. S-M 2: Abyss In B Minor is out overseas 3/22, and 3/23 in the U.S., via 4AD. Do what you can to hit this tour, all dates opened by the Depreciation Guild:

02/19 – Oslo, Norway (by:Larm)
03/08 – London, UK @ The Lexington
03/22- Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland
03/23 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
03/25 – Portland, OR @ Berbati’s Pan
03/26 – Seattle, WA @ Triple Door
03/27 – Vancouver, BC @ Media Club
03/30 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
03/31 – Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
04/01 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre
04/02 – Toronto, ON @ Opera House
04/03 – Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
04/04 – Cambridge, MA @ TT THe Bears
04/05 – Milford, CT @ Daniel Street
04/06 – Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
04/07 – Washington, DC @ DC9
04/08 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge

SXSW info forthcoming.