Talk about fucking shit up, to the point where no less than Charlie Sheen would be impressed.

For the first four years of its existence, Brooklyn’s Ra Ra Riot was known for stately chamber pop, with the group taking the organic approach to the business of songwriting. When cellist Alexandra Lawn bailed after 2011’s Too Dramatic EP, that evidently changed everything. Forget sounding like the work of a bunch of people who can’t get enough of Sigur Rós: Ra Ra Riot’s latest, Beta Love, dives headfirst into the highly processed world of synthetic electro-pop. The reception to this career move can be charitably described as mixed, with most long-term fans wondering what the hell happened.

And you know what? Fuck ’em. After all, if the Beatles gave people what they wanted on every record, Let It Be would have sounded just like “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. Which isn’t to say that Ra Ra Riot—at Venue tonight (February 7)—is going to make anyone forget the Beatles with Beta Love. It’s more of a statement that they haven’t fucked things up nearly as badly as Charlie Sheen might have.