On Monster of the Absolute, Detroit three-piece Paik plays atmospheric instrumentals draped in murky sheets of feedback and distortion. Their music has a contradictory feel to it, cold and distant but couched in warm shoegaze drones. It’s an intriguing combination that makes for an interesting listen.

“Phantoms,” the first song after a brief intro, has a wall of gauzy intensity tempered by a rock groove that doesn’t quite come across successfully. An uninspired repetitive bass riff leads to nowhere and the whole thing comes across as a jam that falls flat. Too bad the band chose that song as the first full track because the rest of the album is much better.

“Snake Face” treads similar ground but does so far more effectively. It kicks off with a driving bass line over which the guitarist’s strings get a full whammy workout. After a few minutes there’s a chord shift that ratchets up the tension and leads to a wicked complementary bass/guitar riff payoff. That they don’t dwell on the moment somehow makes it all the more satisfying.

The last three songs (not counting the outro) mostly ditch the rock grooves in favor of ambience. Paik is truly great at conjuring up swirls of beautiful noise. “October” could provide the perfect soundtrack for a ride aboard an orbiting space shuttle as it hurtles in free fall around the earth. And “Countessa” is an impressionistic wash of mellow feedback and gentle droning. Sandwiched between those is the nearly ten minute title track that intensifies gradually as it weaves a trippy hypnotic spell consisting of pounding rhythms and squalls of feedback.

Disregarding the pointless intro and outro, there are only five tracks on the album. Toss out “Phantom” and you’re left with a strong four song EP. But even in its entirety Monster of the Absolute is a decent album sure to fulfill the needs of shoegaze and space rock fans.