David Wrench and Evangeline Ling threw absolutely everything at their 2018 debut album Now! (in a minute), a hectic, head-spinning blast of freewheeling freak-pop genius. On its follow-up Astro Tough, they’ve somehow found a way to ramp things up even further, concentrating their chaotic energy and inherent weirdness into a record that’s bigger, deeper and more powerful than even its predecessor. While their first record emerged from off the cuff, experimental sessions, they sharpened Astro Tough to a razor’s edge. “Anything that bugged either of us, we went back and ironed it out,” says Wrench. It’s a mark of their brilliance that they’ve managed to hone their sound while simultaneously broadening their palette. Multi-instrumentalist and super-producer Wrench is as comfortable unleashing monolithic psychedelic wig-outs and heavy dub-driven monsters as he is crafting irresistible synth-pop bangers. Writer, vocalist and visual artist Ling is as chameleonic as she is charismatic, able to jump from detachment to rawness to aggression to tenderness to hilarity to toe-curling awkwardness, sometimes within the same song. audiobooks’ music can be a lot to get your head around, but it’s exactly that instinctive rejection of comfort zones that makes them so brilliant. “One of our best gigs was the one when everything went terribly wrong,” Ling laughs. “All the sound totally cut out while we were really in the zone, everyone was shouting and swearing and being really abusive, then when it came back on it just went up another level. It’s the gigs that are all over the shop that are the best ones.” They started their new album as soon as they could feel themselves settling into their first. “We’d been playing the same songs over and over again,” Ling continues. “In rehearsals we were just dying to sing something else. I could feel myself getting too used to being onstage.” To counter it they started actively fostering pre-show nerves. “We realised that before performing Evangeline would have this crazy burst of energy,” s