Devo

Devo has remained plenty active since they released their last album of new material, Smooth Noodle Maps, in 1990. They’ve toured heavily, recorded music for movie soundtracks, experimented with multimedia projects (including a forgotten CD-ROM adventure game), backed bassist/singer Gerald Casale on his satirical side project Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers, and infamously teamed with Disney for Devo 2.0, an all-kid cover band that sang G-rated rewrites of incongruously sexual Devo songs like “Whip It,” “Uncontrollable Urge” and “Jerkin’ Back ’n’ Forth.” For all their activity, though, it seemed less likely with each passing year that the band would release an actual new Devo album. But this summer, Devo finally released that new record, Something for Everybody. A teaser single from the album, “Fresh,” lives up to its name, updating Devo’s classic, synthesized new wave ever so slightly with a taut groove surprisingly in step with modern alternative music.