Case in point: “Never Learned,” wherein Hemsworth gets his childhood heroes Tegan and Sara to cosplay as psychotherapists fronting a pop-punk band. Meanwhile “Break,” with its grimy, compressed production and slowed down jungle beat, sounds like something that could have appeared on Liam Howlett’s Dirtchamber Sessions . “Breed” marries knuckle-dragging guitars and metalcore vocals with skittering hi-hats, producing a hybrid that’s nearly as weird as 300SkullsAndCounting’s recent work . And while “Shifting and Tuning” opens like a folk number, the guitar figure eventually collides with a stumbling rhythm at an odd angle; it feels, well, downright Hemsworthian.

A few songs on Numbskull tilt toward the beat music Hemsworth is known for, but even these are remarkably abrasive. On “One Step,” Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties screeches through a distorted mic over a trunk-rattling 808 beat.…