As much as I try to stay atop notable new releases, it’s inevitable that some will escape my attention for a while.  In this case, “a while” is twelve years, as the first listen I gave to Blonde Redhead’s magnificent 23 was just last week.

And what a waste it’s been, because this would have been one of my favorite records from my college years if I discovered it earlier. It’s the perfect mixture of thick My Bloody Valentine-y textures, Radioheady beat work, and grade-A pop hooks.

Is legend tells it, New York’s Blonde Redhead cut their teeth playing noisy no wave. But like Sonic Youth before them,  they must have realized that formless squelches and squeals don’t make for that compelling of listens. With their previous album, Misery Is A Butterfly, the trio adopted a more traditional songwriting. On 23 though, they turn the hooks up to eleven.

But even with such strong pop sensibilities, there’s still plenty of adventurousness in the atmospheres that coat the songs. Synths blip and sparkle alongside buzzsawing electric guitars, drums skitter under lilting vocals and the occasional flourish of horns. The intricate production work wonderful enough with a surface listen, but it’s even more impressive when you learn that the majority of the album was written and produced live in the studio with no demos.

The band recounts it as a hellacious process, riddled with anxiety and infighting. But the result is breathtaking.

“23” opens the record with a wash of churning chords and a hyperactive drumbeat while Kazu Makino coos heartbreakingly above it. “Dr. Strangeluv” puts the Pace brothers’ jazz backgrounds to good use with a swinging shuffle anchoring a post-punk guitar arpeggio. “The Dress” pulses with a synth bass and an aching melody, bursting with tremolo guitar and an angular drum beat. The piano-led “SW” and the urgent “Spring and By Summer Fall” find one of he Pace twins (I couldn’t ascertain which) taking lead vocal duties, without feeling jarring as it so often does (see: Chvrches’ first record).

“Silently” drops the gloom and brightens the mood a bit, offering a delightful slice of indie pop. The reprieve is brief as the Pace-sung “Publisher” rides dark, droning synths borrowed from Kraftwerk. “Top Ranking” bounces and bubbles with harplike keyboards. “My Impure Hair” rides a lazily strummed acoustic guitar  through a near-country progression interrupted by cascading plumes of noise—a format that calls to mind Mazzy Star without necessarily sounding like them.

I might be twelve years late to this party, but it’s not a shindig I plan on leaving any time soon. And if the rest of their discography is anywhere near this rewarding, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.