On their new album II, L.A. Takedown align the moody grandeur of a film score with the pure melodicism of pop. Led by Los Angeles-based composer/multi-instrumentalist Aaron M. Olson, the seven-piece band delivers a guitar-driven take on synth-pop that might best be classified as “Baywatch krautrock.” And while Olson has some suggestions on how to experience the album—“Drive out on a desert road in the dead of night, roll down the windows, and turn the heater on just enough”; “Get some headphones on and suspiciously stake out a bank”—II ultimately leaves it to the listener to dream up their own imaginary movie for each track to live in.

Though L.A. Takedown began as a home recording project and experiment in film scoring, Olson eventually assembled a live band that soon took on a life of its own. The follow-up to L.A. Takedown’s 2015 self-titled debut, II is the first release featuring the full band, which includes keyboardists Ryan Adlaf and Jonah Olson, guitarists Miles Wintner (Girlpool) and Stephen Heath (Paul Bergman), drummer Mose Wintner, and bassist Jessica Espeleta (Weird War, Love as Laughter).