Hypnotic Smackis the new album from Knowso, the Cleveland punk duo featuring Nathan Ward (Cruelster, Perverts Again, the Carp) and Jayson Gerycz (Cloud Nothings). If youve heard Knowsos music, you know theyre spiritual children of Devo, both in their proclivity toward dense and nervy rhythmic experimentation and in the way their lyrics turn a cracked, distorted mirror at the world and its many absurdities. Like the Falls best records,Hypnotic Smackattacks the body and the brain simultaneously, your hips jerking uncontrollably to the robotic pulse of You Climb the Sphynx and Club Music is the Soundtrack while your brain chews the koan-like cud of lyrical nuggets such as every boss in America is a real estate agent. Wards cryptic lyrics reflect the psychedelic labyrinth of horrors that is your daily doomscroll, but its OK we can still dance the night away to Panopticon, the goth club dance anthem no one predicted Knowso would write. The world is full of punk bands that are great at pummeling you, butHypnotic Smackis the rare punk record that beguiles and entrances.