Meet The Two Koreas, an impetuous guttersnipe of a band that stares through your middle-class shop windows with Sonic Youth’s Dirty smeared all over its face. A shimmering opalescence of guitars announces the poptastic opening cut, “Scared Straight,” which delivers immediate gratification in the form of singer Stuart Berman’s crisply tailored vocals. Conjuring the great enunciators (and moaners) of the British Invasion, Berman’s polite nonchalance channels the indifferent divo Ian Curtis, with a dash of Jim Carroll’s street poetry and a ringmasterly David Bryne twist thrown in for good measure.

Marking s the Toronto-based outfit’s fourth release — showcasing a sound that’s self-described as “glacial garage beat muzik” — Science Island is a distinguished yet high-frequency testament to The Two Koreas’ eight-year effort to construct a rock-tastic new sub-genre. Synonymous with post-everything electro-strut, The Two Koreas’ previous albums, Main Plates and Classic Pies (2005), Altruists (2007) and 2008’s Sessions EP, paved the way for Science Island’s smooth plateaus and dizzying plunges. The righteous rhythm of “Midnight Brown” hits the throttle hard, setting a rapid monkey-see-monkey-do pace for the clockwork precision of “Hotel Christiania.” Elsewhere, a drone-drenched “Haunted Beach” recalls the surf-god glory of the B-52s, veritably quaking with wave after wave of tremulous keys supplied courtesy of the magic-fingered Jason Anderson. Safe to say, Ric Ocasek himself would lose his shit over The Two Koreas’ tension-fraught geekdom. That’s the thing about glaciers — sometimes they conceal volcanoes.