Man or Astro-Man?

Emerging amid the early-'90s surf revival that spotlighted acts such as Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Laika & the Cosmonauts, and the returning Dick Dale, Auburn's Man or Astro-man? carved its own niche with self-coined space-age surf. The quartet came together in 1992, its founding lineup featuring Birdstuff on drums, Star Crunch on guitar, Dr. Delecto & his Invisible Vaportron on bass, and Electronic Monkey Wizard handling alternate-universe bass. Blending the instrumental drive of 1960s surf with the off-kilter wit of Devo, the group maintained a rapid release schedule across the decade, several recordings guided by Steve Albini. Those titles included 1993's Is It...Man or Astro Man?, 1994's Destroy All Astromen!!, 1995's Project Infinity, 1996's Experiment Zero, three 1997 sets—What Remains Inside a Black Hole, Live Transmissions From Uranus, and Made From Technetium—and 1999's EEVIAC: Operational Index & Reference Guide. After losing Dr. Delecto and Star Crunch, the remaining members continued into the new century, issuing 2000's A Spectrum of Infinite Scale and two 2001 projects: the limited-edition A Spectrum of Finite Scale and the compilation Beyond the Black Hole, which gathered What Remains Inside a Black Hole with assorted B-sides and outtakes. Following a period of inactivity, the band reassembled for a one-off appearance at Touch and Go's 25th-anniversary concert in 2006. A fuller return occurred in 2010, when the musicians resumed live dates and began developing fresh material, culminating in the 2013 album Defcon 5...4...3...2...1—their first studio effort in more than ten years.