Courtesy of Free Bike Valet.

The man is Luis Dubuc, Mystery Skulls is his project and the end result is the best electronic pop music you‰’ll hear this year. Mystery Skulls released its first full album, Forever, late in 2014 under the Warner Bros. label. Packed to the brim with perfectly composed songs, Forever delivers on every pop angle possible.

This project is the baby of a man with a great voice, but not for a second does the beat take a back seat. All the vanity of self-obsessed pop singers vanishes in an undulating wave of pounding bass rhythms that build up to some of the most interestingly pleasing sounds someone can compile. This endeavor is not a shrine to another pretty pop vocalist. Mystery Skulls is a fully packaged sound with its own brand, right from the first full album.

Forever is a debut album, but it does not sound like a freshman effort. In truth that‰’s because Dubuc‰’s been around several blocks before. Dubuc started out as a self-admitted uncool kid. Anime and comics became quick obsessions for the soon-to-be musician. Roots run deep, as Mystery Skulls channels the raw color and creativity of comic books and cartoons into audio. However, it was not until the pop gods, Prince and Michael Jackson, called down to Dubuc from on high, that music sparked his interest. Even then, it took entering into rebellious fits of adolescence for music to get its hold on the man soon to be Mystery Skulls.

In his teenage years metal was the mainstay for this amateur musician. Serving first as a drummer, Dubuc played the really aggressive stuff. Slayer, Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah, and similarly super abrasive heavy black metal pulled him in. After a few years playing metal, Dubuc branched out into Secret Handshake, his first foray into electronic pop music. Secret Handshake produced some decent songs but did not have the same strong character, the same rich diversity in sound that makes Mystery Skulls so enticing. Secret Handshake could not hold Dubuc down for long and he briefly returned to the metal scene with a band called Of Legends.

For whatever reason pop music called again. Dubuc replied a second time. That brings us roughly up to today, though Mystery Skulls has been making music since 2011. Though the solo project has started to hit it big, selling out shows and getting on a big label, the name has not sold yet. It is only a matter of time until it does. Mystery Skulls does something dramatic plenty of pop and electronic acts don‰’t. It mixes up the beat.

Mystery Skulls has the spirit of a man on a continual music journey that might just end with the finest dance music made the early side of this century. Across interviews Luis Dubuc has expressed love for all sorts of music from metal to MJ to drum n’ bass. The man behind Mystery Skulls notes offhandedly in an interview that he “kind of went through a million phases.‰” Forever shows that Mystery Skulls is the project and Dubuc is the man of a million phases.

A Mystery Skulls song can settle into an incredible melody without actually settling. Instead the notes escalate and build up to a climax that shatters into a denouement fitting of story. Just as Dubuc constantly grew as he shifted between sounds, the songs of Mystery Skulls grow as they advance towards the end. Mystery Skulls does not sound like a fusion of genres, but it does sound like pop made from an artist who understands the value of changing up the formula. It is a project of a million phases because each one of those phases made it the single solid sound it is now.

“Hellbent‰” shows how committed Mystery Skulls is to changing it up. The song opens with a harsh array of sounds that could easily continue on the whole song and get sold to Nissan for a futuristic car commercial. But everything fades to vocals and bass to make room for the chorus. As the vocals gear up everything else rises to match them. The sharp, quick-cut chords come back in and each element returns one at a time. The singing returns with the cocking of a gun and a Phil Collins-style drum fill to belt out a few sharp lyrics. Then a strange rippling sound effect slowly winds into the song until it speeds up and takes over for the last forty seconds. As a segment it lasts less than a minute, but it is so catchy it could stick with you for a week.

Mystery Skulls refuses to settle. Forever refuses to peddle something simple. Instead it makes odd noises and strong shifts in sound agreeable. The album and the project are the babies of a musician that wound his way across many musical blocks just to be here. Each song bears a bit of the wandering soul that made it. That alone makes Mystery Skulls worth listening to on repeat.