Dirty Projectors have stood as long-lasting indie veterans for many years now, dating back to at least 2003 with a sound that has always been ahead of its time. The group is famous for its use of lo-fi production and complex melodic sections. It exists in a genre most easily described as art rock (the “indie” part being essentially synonymous), serving a dedicated niche of indie followers.

Its new album “Dirty Projectors,” five years after the group’s last album, “Swing Lo Magellan,” which itself followed a split album with singer Bjork and the album “Bitte Orca.” Each of these albums were absolutely fantastic, and had an exceptionally fresh and unique take on the indie genre. What they had in common with each other was an uplifting, folksy tone to them, despite sounding overall more like an extremely progressive form of indie rock. “Dirty Projectors” does not share this tone.

With its first eponymous album title on the band’s 10th studio record, Dirty Projectors’ message is clear: this is a new band with a completely new sound. While Dirty Projectors is a band that changes its sound pretty consistently with every album, this album is very upfront about not being like the band’s other attempts. For one thing, it’s a much darker tone overall, almost wistful. Though there are still songs with that sort of upbeat, positive implication, the album itself seems to be experimenting more with the darker side of the band’s songwriting. It presents less of a bubbly, quirky exterior like previous albums and instead comes off as more pensive and withdrawn, the vocals eking out like a pleading inquisition from a curious loner.

But of course, this change of sound is much more tangible than just a change in overall tone. Indeed, this album experiments with new concrete ideas and instrumentation. In a move extremely unusual for indie or art rock, “Dirty Projectors” makes liberal use of auto-tune. This will come off as either intriguing or extremely grating; it’s a move comparable to composing a complex orchestral piece using a cat keyboard. An attempt to make a five-star dish with ingredients typically thrown out with the leftovers. And certainly it’s a valid attempt, but one has to question whether or not its inclusion was necessary to improve the album, or just an interesting experiment that muddies what would otherwise be a great series of songs.

Another tangible change is that unlike on previous albums, the songs no longer revolve around the harmonies of lead singer/only consistent member David Longstreth and recently withdrawn member Amber Coffin. All harmonies are now solely performed by Longstreth and himself (or guest artist Dawn Richard as is the case on the track “Cool Your Heart”). While the emphasis is still strong on these harmonies (perhaps even more so than on previous albums), there’s a new emphasis on a component that also makes its debut on this album; that of increased percussion at the introduction of glitch-hop themes.

In a surprising turn of events, “Dirty Projectors” take the band’s established sound in a direction more akin to hip-hop than indie. The primary instrumentation on this album outside of the vocals has become the digitally produced beats and percussion, with glitchy sounding elements adding yet another element to the band’s complete change of direction. The end result is something extremely new and different, even for Dirty Projectors.

Whether or not this new album is any good may fall on complete opposite ends of the spectrum for any two given people that listen to it. Like it or not though, this album is like nothing else, and Dirty Projectors is very unapologetic about that. This is made clear in the first song when the band samples its song “Impregnable Question,” warping it into something foreign but recognizable. It’s a move that says “Yeah, this is what we’re doing now. Get on board or get out of our way.”