Ganser sounds the way I want a Chicago band to sound. On their new single, “Emergency Equipment & Exits,” the music is thick, muscular. It moves along with the beat of rushing traffic, guitar like bending metal and a keyboard part adding the texture of a place alive. It crunches and buzzes and soars, deploying the inherent power of rock music while simultaneously taming and reshaping it, until it becomes enveloping, like a storm cloud that’s somehow soothing to sit within. Appropriately, given that the accompanying music video takes in the urban environment with a sharp, loving eye, Ganser’s track is a mirror of the city where they reside, in all its thrills and dangers and contradictions.

The band’s sophomore album, Just Look At That Sky, is scheduled for release on July 31, 2020.