This time last year, Seattle's Dead Science lined up a tour. Great, wonderful — a series of clubs around the country agreed to host this extraordinary, experimental rock-jazz trio. Great. Slight problem: actually getting there.

Young and broke, Dead Science played a couple of local shows, sold some of their tantalizing "Submariner" CDs, pooled $700 to buy a 10-year-old van. They knew it was trouble waiting to happen, but what else could they do?

As the tour progressed, the noises and clunks and stalls were getting worse. Sam Mickens, Jherek Bischoff and Nick Tamburro finished a show in New Orleans and looked at a map: They'd have to cross the entire state of Texas to make the next show, in El Paso, with barely enough gas money to make it there. They decided to go for it ... and broke down, "in the middle of the night, in the middle of Texas," Mickens recalled.

Miraculously, they found a kindly mechanic who gave the van a temporary fix for $20, and the Dead Science three staggered into El Paso, barely in time for the scheduled set — only to find the club had closed, for good.

At this point, they might have given up, burned the van and called it quits against the unseen forces of evil. ... But, no, they just tightened their belts, sold some CDs, guilted the booking agent (who somehow neglected to inform them of the closed club) into giving them gas money, and went on to the next show.

Now, the "gloom rock" trio is preparing for another tour, armed with "Frost Giant," another powerful recording of subdued chaos — sounds like Radiohead buried alive, wondering why. Mickens the singer echoes a wounded animal, singing from the bottom of a dark soul pit. Bischoff's strong, lithe bass is a steadying force in the chaotic environment, perhaps a light at the end of infinity. ...

Mickens and Bischoff, who met when both were living on Bainbridge Island and attending Seattle Central Community College, sat with an interviewer the other day at the — fittingly — below-ground café of Elliott Bay Book Co. Both are tall and slender. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Mickens, in T-shirt and jeans, wears his hair combed back, like a '50s movie actor. Bass player Bischoff, in a mod suit and tie, wears his hair falling across his face, a slightly restrained Flock of Seagulls. He lives on Eastlake, where he pays the rent with music production work. Mickens works at this café, a short walk from his Pioneer Square apartment.

During the interview, the Modest Mouse platinum-selling "Good News for People Who Love Bad News" began playing over the PA system. With their dour, nonmainstream music, Mickens and Bischoff hardly expect that level of success. They do hope to be able to make a modest living off their music, some day.

"It would be nice to put out records and go on tour and not be constantly stressed out about money," Mickens said. "If I could make as much [from Dead Science] as I'm making here, I would basically be happy."

("The café's closed," a café worker interjected to those huddled around their Sunday-evening coffees.)

Don't feel too sorry for Mickens, as his starving-artist situation likely fuels his creativity. Take the title of the new CD: He borrows the Norse mythological character "frost giant" name, though for him it represents something else. "I feel like a lot of the songs are about people ... being kind of crushed by forces they can't see ... and being in love with being destroyed."

"Frost Giant" begins with a chilly image:

Teeth pulled and punctured; the nerves dead worn

Stuck in both arms; your last return

Eight songs after "Last Return," similar images return with the album-ending "Lead to Gold in the Hour of Chaos," which concludes:

Blood in my mouth every morning

Did it seep out of my dreams?

Or just these dying teeth; my family crest

Leaden gifts you can't abandon ...

Dreams are a common theme, whether in the background or fore; there's even a song called "Sam Mickens' Dream" — an ironic title, it turns out (I went to sleep, perchance to dream/But nothing came to me).

After playing Ballard all-ages venue the Paradox at 8 p.m. Saturday ($7), the Dead Science is off to Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Baltimore and Denver ...

This time around, they're renting a van.

• Seattle hip-hop crew Cancer Rising has a sharp new CD, "Search for the Cure," with some comically twisted rhymes (" ... bartenders/keeping me bent like a car fender"). The "serious"/melodramatic raps don't do much, but the top of the album is bouncy and fun, shades of the Wu. Cancer Rising performs at 9 p.m. Thursday at Chop Suey ($7), with Blue Scholars and Boom Bap Project.

• The talented young folk singer Rosie Thomas, 9 p.m. Saturday at the Triple Door ($12), and the veteran country-grunge singer Eddie Spaghetti, 9 p.m. Tuesday at the Tractor ($8), also unveil new CDs.

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com