As soon as Kicker In Tow begins, you're blown into a world very different from that of their debut. "Kinetic Work", the opener, does exactly what it says on the tin: rather than a slow starter, it's a raucous call-to-arms, all flailing drumming and insistent viola work. If ever instrumental music could be the equivalent of a drill sergeant, then this is it. Rest easy -- this isn't a second-album flop. It's the sound of two people honing their musical voice.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Efrim once more produces the duo's work, recorded at the mighty Hotel2Tango, but this time around there's more of a balanced feel. This isn't an airy, loose recording -- the soundfield is dense. It feels like they're playing in a small room -- the acoustics speak of closeness, of amped vehemence. If anything, this is the closest the band's ever come to sounding like Dirty Three. While that sounds like a cop -- yeah, yeah, they both have strings -- Craven's drumming has never sounded more like Jim White's subtle skinboxing (particularly on the polyphonic dirge that comprises "Sink"). There seems to be less of a predilection for arty, experimental work and more of a turn to the visceral side of things -- apart from the loose-time, slow-motion closer "Broken Reel", which features soaring string lines of which Warren Ellis should rightly be envious.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the band's experimental side is gone. There is, indeed, much sonic doodling to be found here; it's just that the duo's particular blend of improv punk-meets-Paganini has been honed more. Whether this is maturation of ideas or just the reality of playing together for longer and developing a more fluent sense of each player is unknown, and ultimately doesn't matter; there's much less a sense of two people playing something and hoping like crazy that it works. This time, there's a feeling of muscular control, of ideas that lurk, sharklike, before jumping out to grab the listener with percussive fury. The predatory waves of "Losing Your Charm" are perhaps the best example, sinuously keeping the climax out of the listener's reach, then beating on in with drum-work that sounds like exclamation-points.

Kicker In Tow's packaging is, of course, exemplary, but this time around, it's also well-suited to the noise found within -- not just something to bang the table in awe over. The album cover shows industrial scenes -- people going to work under the shadow of large Metropolis-like cogs -- that puts tracks like "View From The Ground" in perspective. The band, at these points, sounds more machine than human; there's the percussive sound of the foundry, of giant presses, of toil. "No More Bad Future" sounds like spot-welding and hull-hammering. It's this sense of work and sweat that's new. It gives the album a feeling of vitality that puts the two-piece one up over monolithic instrumental ensembles. Can it be legal for two people to make this much noise? Probably not, but it's more direct and more moving than some of the bigger fish.

Kicker In Tow is a taste of what HangedUp are capable of, much more so than their debut ever was. There's raw anger here -- a feeling of amped, shredding fury made stronger by the fact that this time, it's reined in. Where HangedUp was the sound of a group feeling their way around the junkyard, the duo's second disc is the sound of preparation for an unholy arse-kicking. If they don't drop the ball on their next release, they'll flatten GY!BE's po-faced audience by dint of their art-punk ballsiness. Until then, consider Kicker In Tow an essential purchase. Go out and buy, good worker. Use this as the soundtrack for your revolution.