Statehood. Lies and Rhetoric (Self-Released, 2007)

"I feel confused because there's no sensation/ We lack a motive and we change our roles."

In February 2008, Statehood's lead singer Clark Sabine was diagnosed with cancer. On June 17, 2009, Sabine passed away at the tragically young age of 33, and the DC scene lost a true talent.

Statehood, a four-piece boasting the devastating ex-Dismemberment Plan rhythm section of drummer Joe Easley and bassist Eric Axelson, along with Sabine on vocals/guitars/keys and Leigh Thompson on guitars/keys, released their self-titled debut in 2007. The LP is a spot-on collection of classic DC-post-punk-style burners, with an emphasis on pummeling syncopation and a taut, live wire guitar attack, super tight and super catchy. Statehood bring a serious sound to the table, steeped in righteous anger and amorphous paranoia, with Sabine's edgy tenor delivering the vaguely political lyrics with force and desperate conviction.

Not surprisingly, Axelson and Easley are key to the band's success. One of the mightiest drum and bass duos of recent memory, these guys have an intuitive understanding of each other's approach and style, crafting rock solid rhythmic foundations on top of which Sabine and Thompson erect galvanized towers of six-string treble. Axelson, in particular, with his distinctly dub and reggae-informed playing, injects each song with a manic, basement-frequency energy, keeping the melodies deep deep deep in the pocket and freeing the guitars -- played by Sabine and Thompson with just the right blend of control and chaos, dual lines feeding off each other in a compelling serpentine system -- to slash and burn at will.

Each song on this LP stands in the shadow of District giants like Fugazi, Jawbox, Burning Airlines, and Faraquet. Plus, it was produced by ex-Dismemberment Plan guitarist Jason Caddell at Dischord's house studio Inner Ear, so this is about as DC as it gets. And that's just great, especially when you've got tunes like the throbbing opener "Story's End," flinty, panicked standout "Save Yourself," and the bracing "No, I Don't Think You Want to Know" up your sleeve. "Hidden Views" wraps jagged, hacking chords around fluid bass lines and chattering hi-hats, while "Disconnect" bobs along over waves of punchy low end as the riffs stab and echo and richochet, sawing ragged, awesome holes in the song's fabric.

According to a statement on their website, Statehood plan to release 10 songs recorded before Sabine's passing. Here's hoping those tracks see the light of day, and here's wishing Sabine's family and friends the strength to deal with their loved one's untimely demise.

Lies and Rhetoric - Statehood

Act Surprised is taking the day off and will return with a new post on Friday, June 19.

National Skyline. This = Everything (File 13, 2001)

"They can fill my lungs with air/ They can tell I barely care."

National Skyline sprang from the fertile post-punk breeding ground of Champaign-Urbana, IL, home to '90s semi-stars Braid, the Poster Children, Castor, and Hum. In fact, National Skyline boasts refugees from several of those acts: bassist Jeff Dimpsey did time in the Poster Children and Hum, and singer/guitarist Jeff Garber used to be in Castor. That qualifies as a supergroup, in some admittedly tight circles.

Bearing more than a passing resemblance to Hum's patented spaceface drone, National Skyline's sound leans heavily on glitchy digital rhythms, haunting, breathy vocals, and smooth-to-abrasive guitar work. The end result is darkly atmospheric and surprisingly hooky, a unique listening experience and beautiful in a sinister way, like gleaming, winterbright ice masking the dark and deadly waters of a frozen lake.

This = Everything is National Skyline's second full length, following 2000's self-titled debut, and it's a pretty intriguing piece of work. Over the course of 10 songs and 40 minutes, these sons of the Land of Lincoln articulate their singular vision, in turn crafting a collection of tunes calling to mind the more tuneful aspects of post-rock and the cheerful dance floor knowhow of New Order. Rhythm is king throughout, as live drums and programmed beats blend to provide a solid foundation for the fluid, minor key-dominated bass and guitar interplay. Garber delivers the lyrics in a dreamy, blissed out exhale of a voice, adding to the outer limits feel of the LP.

"Some Will Say" herky-jerks the album off to a nice start, Dimpsey's rich bass line bolstering off-kilter beats behind chiming loops and Garber's swelling guitar. "Reinkiller" charges forward, its dubby momentum and pinballing riffs giving way to digitally-inflected power chords. The delightful bounce and swagger of "A Night at the Drugstore" is an album highlight, its effortless buoyancy providing one of the few downright cheerful periods of an otherwise pretty shadowy album.

"A Million Circles" ropes you in with its hypnotic melody and crisp syncopation, waves of synth gone glassy and smooth, shattered at the crucial moment by Garber's frantic solo. The acoustic "Cadence of Water" provides a welcome organic counterpoint to the rest of the LP's mechanistic sheen, weaving poignant strums around lilting ebb-and-flow vocals, delicate and wounded.

National Skyline aim for a kind of desolate, gorgeous soundscape, and inevitably hit the mark. This = Everything conjures up the beauty of an oil refinery at night, its smokestacks and halogen lights in full man-made bloom, artificial in every way but sublimely stunning all the same.

a night at the drugstore - national skyline

Grandaddy. The Sophtware Slump (V2, 2000)

“Last night something pretty bad happened, we lost a friend, all shocked and broken, shut down exploded.”

Formed in 1992, Grandaddy really nailed the Y2K zeitgeist with their particular brand of hippie-robot-rock. In my opinion, they hit their peak on 2000’s Sophtware Slump, a gorgeous landscape of techno-waste featuring android poets, emoting machinery, and a forest full of rusting abandoned appliances. It’s a bleak landscape, to be sure, but in lyricist and lead singer Jason Lytle’s capable hands, it’s a place you won’t mind visiting for the duration of Sophtware Slump.

Beginning with a lush 9-minute (yes, 9-minute) space-trip-opera, you’ll find yourself traveling along with 2000 Man in “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot.” Before you write this off as hippie bullshit (I know, it’s tempting; Lytle is a little too into hackey-sacking-back-packing for my taste, and I’m pretty sure he rides his bike barefoot, but all of that aside) just give it a chance and try not to be swept into 2000 Man’s world.

Once there, you’ll next meet “Hewlett’s Daughter,” leaving a trail of broken hearts in her digital wake as the machine-pocalypse unfolds. With lazy drums, occasionally crashing guitars, and un-parse-able lyrics, it’s probably safe to presume Grandaddy was pretty high while recording this record, and it makes for pretty fun listening.

“Jed The Humanoid” tells the sad tale of a robot created from spare parts, initially loved, ultimately abandoned by his creators, and finally destroyed by alcoholism. Go ahead and laugh, but I promise you will never be more moved by an alcoholic android’s story. Seriously, on the right day, this song can make me cry. But don’t worry, you’re spirits will be lifted with “The Crystal Lake”’s synth-lament for simpler times.

“Chartsengrafs” is one of the harder rocking songs on this record, with driving drums and guitars. It’s followed by “Underneath The Weeping Willow,” a simple piano/vocal combo, which serves as a sweet rest stop before you are dropped into the “Broken Household Appliance National Forest,” the catchiest anthem on global warming you’ll ever sing along to.

Next up is a posthumous poem from our ill-fated humanoid friend Jed about his descent into destruction, appropriate titled “Jed’s Other Poem”: “You said I’d wake up dead drunk/ Alone in the park/ I called you a liar/ But how right you were.” The “E. Knievel Interlude” is a quick synth-bit on the way to meeting the “Miner At The Dial-A-View.” I’ve listened to this song an awful lot, and I’m still not sure exactly what the “Dial-A-View” is, but I am sure our miner has been stuck there for a really long time (forgive the cheesy spoken interlude obviously provided by one of Grandaddy’s girlfriends).

“So You’ll Aim Toward The Sky” rounds out Sophtware Slump on a hopeful note, albeit a note that sounds a bit about colonizing a new planet to replace this dump called Earth that humans have wrecked. Okay, so Grandaddy’s enviro-evangelizing is pretty fierce on this records, but keep in mind this was waaaaaaay back in 2000 before Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore made it cool to give a shit about planet Earth. So put on your time-travel helmet, and just give in to the hippies already. It’s so beautifully crafted, you’ll be hard-pressed to fight it.

Sadly, Grandaddy broke up in 2006, with Jason Lyttle relocating to Montana, ostensibly to live a simpler, greener life, or whatever. Thankfully, he left a trail of great Grandaddy records, including the genius Sophtware Slump, in his wake. -- Anneke Chy

The Sophtware Slump - Grandadd...

Manishevitz. City Life (Jagjaguwar, 2003)

"Back in the day/ We were willing to play/ The songs that/ You'd never forget."

I have a special place in my heart for Manishevitz, mainly because they hail from my home state -- Virginia, that dear Old Dominion -- and are affiliated with one of my favorite labels, Bloomington by way of Richmond-based Jagjaguwar.

When I was in college, I was always proud of Jagjaguwar: it was a great label representing a region (my native central Virginia) that too often got overshadowed by the NoVA-DC axis, home to relative giants like Dischord and Teenbeat. Jagjaguwar signed bands from Charlottesville and Richmond, bands like Drunk and the Curious Digit that played in the basement at Tokyo Rose, bands someone who grew up in the middle of nowhere could boast of.

Adam Busch was a founding member of the Curious Digit before he broke off to mastermind Manishevitz, taking slow-core Americana outfit Drunk's guitarist Via Nuon with him. In Manishevitz, Busch set off to satisfy his eccentric psych-pop sensibilities, crafting fractured indie oddities underpinned by Nuon's fleet-fingered axemanship. Manishevitz specializes in out-there mini-symphonies, instruments layered one upon the other and injected with a strange and ear-catching euphoria. Not for everyone, no, but impossible to forget.

2003's City Life is Manishevitz's third LP, and as bizarre a statement as Busch has made. A lot of the weirdness comes from Busch's vocal delivery: an arch, fey, hilariously fakey pseudo-British hiccup which bounces from the speakers in bursts of artifice. But behind the voice is an advanced songwriting sensibility which shines through time and again on City Life's nine songs and nearly 36 minutes. This is essentially guitar pop, nicely art damaged and skewed, never trading experimentation for a good tune and never wearing out its welcome.

Stylistically, City Life's songs range from the more or less straightforward mid-fi rock of opener "Beretta," its chiming riffs, fuzzy solos, and bouncy hand clap beats setting the stage for a bright and shiny pop holiday, to the semi-drone of "Hate Ilene," which nearly abandons its charming sprawl of a melody shortly after the minute mark, content instead to float into the ether on waves of gentle chords, unspooling single note sustains, and languid drum fills. It's Spiritualized on a budget, and it's far more appetizing than that sounds.

The rollicking barrelhouse piano adds a tuneful touch to the album's title track, as Nuon distinguishes himself with an endless series of abstract-yet-unannoying guitar passages and Busch spins out nonsensical observations on the urban condition -- "You hammer and you nail/ But you've got to be kidding/ Over the oxygen/ You're flipping a dime" -- while investing every line with a crackpot urgency. "Mary Ann" employs horns and woodwinds and punchy drums to craft an asylum inmate's sock hop anthem, and "Colorado Shore" chugs with rock in its heart and God-knows-what on its mind, boasting Warren G-funk keys and one of the catchiest hooks of the collection.

Manishevitz certainly let the freak flag fly, coming at conventions from unusual and untoward angles. But they consistently ground their sound in classical pop territory, and never lose sight of the listenable. And I can say with confidence: Virginia is for lovers of Manishevitz. Or at least it should be.

Manishevitz

Harvey Danger. Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? (Arena Rock, 1997)

"Here's a fact you cannot rise above/ We'll have problems and then we'll have bigger ones."

Harvey Danger were victims of their own success. Having toiled in the Seattle club scene for the better part of the '90s, the guitar pop quartet barged into the mainstream on the strength of their 1997 single "Flagpole Sitta," which was featured in the post-Scream teen horror hit (and Katie Holmes vehicle) Disturbing Behavior and quickly ensconced itself as a staple/bright spot of Clinton era alt-rock radio.

Shortly thereafter, Harvey Danger found themselves selling a crap ton of their debut LP Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? (the title is taken from a line slurred by a blotto Shelley Winters in the 1966 thriller Harper, starring Paul Newman as the titular private eye. You should see it, it's good), becoming hopelessly overexposed, and thereafter sinking into commercial oblivion having achieved the unenviable position of being forgotten by the fickle masses and written off as mainstream one-hitters by the cognoscenti.

Which is way too bad, seeing as 1) "Flagpole Sitta" truly rules, and 2) the rest of Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? is pretty effing great. Harvey Danger deserved the attention, but didn't deserve the backlash, and their debut still stands as a forgotten indie gem, an example of a quirky, smart band obtaining massive mainstream attention.

Let's just start with "Flagpole Sitta." You remember it: a galloping, feverishly hooky mammoth jam, buoyed by a bouncing bassline and irresistibly propulsive drum track, all snappy snares and slamming kickdrum hits. Singer Sean Nelson channels Elvis Costello as he spits out frenzied paranoia like, "Hear the voices in my head/ I swear to God it sounds like they're snoring/ But if you're bored then you're boring/ The agony and the irony, they're killing me," in an adenoidal singsong that's impossible to forget. On top of that, Jeff J. Lin turns in some satisfyingly thorny guitar work, twisting the main riffs to the breaking point and wringing some impressive chaos from his instrument. This is no Eve 6/Marcy Playground/Dishwalla wannabe: it's a song that most bands would kill to write.

And then there's the rest of the album, which adds up to a consistently solid collection of samurai-sharp indie pop. These guys had apparently been listening to the right stuff along the way, from the Attractions to Unrest to the Pixies, steeping their sound in punchy melodies and advanced-class song structures, getting loads of mileage out of the loud-quiet-loud dynamic and wrapping the tunes in just the right amount of smart-assery. The production, by John Goodmanson (who's manned the boards for such indie luminaries as Sleater-Kinney, Pavement, Blonde Redhead, Bikini Kill, and Los Campesinos!) does Harvey Danger all kinds of favors, nailing and amplifying the essential tunefulness of the songs and delivering them like a roundhouse to the jaw.

The first half of the record is gold. Besides the aforementioned "Flagpole Sitta," there's the sugar rush of "Carlotta Valdez," floating on agile strums and catchy bass work until the power chords add menace and weight, and the slow build of "Woolly Muffler," which bides its time until exploding into pure rock fury (well, annoyance, anyway) at the 1:44 mark, guitars blaring and cymbals crashing. "Friends will turn against you/ People disappoint you every time/ So if you've got greatness in you/ Would you do us all a favor and keep it to yourself," sneers Nelson before expounding on a "belabored expat fantasy." The soaring "Private Helicopter" marries ex-girlfriend fantasies to serrated hooks and on-a-dime time changes, while "Problems And Bigger Ones" is the album's most successful down-tempo number, a smoldering, bruising elegy for lost love and missed chances that wouldn't sound out of place on the Promise Ring's emo triumph Nothing Feels Good.

Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? loses a little steam in the back half, but there's nothing embarrassing here. A few too many slow jams, but the rockers are beyond competent, especially the swinging "Old Hat" and "Terminal Annex," with its vaguely Cure-like sparkle and fade, blown-amp solos, and genius put-downs: "You complain about an overflowing cup/ Don't forget that I'm the one who filled that fucker up."

If you'd forgotten about Harvey Danger or written them off, you owe them another listen. You can find Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? for about one cent on Amazon or whatever, and believe me: Harvey Danger's thoughts are worth your penny.

Act Surprised will return with a new entry on Monday, June 8.

El Perro Del Mar. El Perro Del Mar (Memphis Industries, 2006)

“This loneliness ain’t pretty no more.”

Hailing from the dolorous Nordic climes of Gothenburg, Sweden, El Perro Del Mar, aka Sarah Assbring, is a one-woman show of delicious lo-fi pop melancholia. Who knew such sonic grief could flow from a place that gets 17 hours of sunlight a day every summer? But flow it does, and after a listen to 2006’s self-titled LP, you’ll be happier for it. Backed by what sounds like the world’s saddest girl group, El Perro Del Mar delivers devastatingly lush vignettes that you’ll inevitably find yourself ooh-ing and bebop-a-loo-ing along to.

"Candy" gets things dirge-ing with a woe-is-me tale of a people-pleaser who has had it up. to. here. and flip-flops into a sighing hedonism, if only for one night. Trust me, you’ll want to be along for the ride, especially as "Candy" gives way to album hit "God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)." This girl is carrying around some serious guilt, which she channels beautifully into this Shangri-La’s-esque number.

"Party" invites you along to the drama club festivities: “Is it so hard to see/I don’t want to be your friend/I just want to be a part of you.” And following that, "People" declares all human beings simply impenetrable: “I can’t understand people/ But I guess that’s all right/ 'Cause they can’t understand me.” Does it get any more dire? Oh yeah, it does. "Dog" finds our El Perro being treated like a mongrel by some ne’er-do-well, and liking it.

"I Can’t Talk About It" will have you hand-clapping along as our drama queen clams up: “Lately there’s been a lot going on/ I can’t really talk about it.” Luckily, "Coming Down The Hill" finds our Swedish chanteuse skipping around proclaiming to the world that she’s got good news. What could it be? “I’ve lost the blues for you.”

Never fear, before you can get used to that high note, she’s back to plumbing the nadir of "This Loneliness," which is seriously impairing her social life. Even "It’s All Good," perhaps the cheeriest ditty on the record (“It’s all good to take a new road and never look back") can’t hide the edge in Assbring’s voice, and while the good vibes float almost to the surface, they never quite emerge from the deep. The horn-happy "Here Comes That Feeling," will have you dancing along before you realize that the feeling she’s talking about is soul-crushing depression.

By the end of this LP you may just get the sense that Ms. Assbring has let you in on a personal therapy session in which her hopelessness is best medicated with a dose of doo-wop. But she walks an exquisite tightrope of letting you see and hear the depths of her misery while at the same time buoying you gently out of reach of her gloom.-- Anneke Chy

El Perro Del Mar - El Perro De...

LCD Soundsystem. Sound of Silver (Capitol/DFA, 2007)

"And yeah we knew you were tired, but then/ Where are your friends tonite?"

LCD Soundsystem is the Robocop of indie rock: half man, half machine, all great. The brainchild of knob-twiddler and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire James Murphy (Robocop's real name was Murphy, too), it's a brilliant amalgamation of krautrock-inspired electro and meat-and-potatoes FM radio rock, insistent programmed beats and shimmery synths fighting for space around live bass, drums, and guitar. Plus, Murphy is a piss-taker of the first order, investing his songs with a nice mix of pathos, humor, dread, and regret.

Before becoming one of dance punk's most sought after producers as half of dynamic duo the DFA (with Tim Goldsworthy, himself a co-founder of the UK's Mo' Wax imprint), Murphy did time in post-punk outfits like Pony and Speedking, manning the drum kits and honing his timing. He made his sound design bones by handling the sound set-up for keyboards 'n' coke visionaries Six Finger Satellite, helping those dudes scare the hell out of a bunch of unsuspecting college kids.

By 2001, Murphy had teamed up with Goldsworthy to create DFA (that's Death From Above) Records, cranking out early-aughts classics by benighted Brooklynites like the Rapture, the Juan Maclean (aka John Maclean from Six Finger Satellite), Black Dice, and Radio 4, helping guitar-wielding post-millennial punks with Saturday night fever shake their asses in shitty basements all over Williamsburg. It was Gang of Four all over again, minus the politics, plus the drugs, as chronicled by Vice. And it sounded pretty great.

LCD Soundsystem arrived shortly thereafter, as Murphy took to penning his own tracks and playing his own instruments, pulling from pop, garage, disco, techno, psych, new wave, no wave, and whatever else lay at his fingertips. Debut single "Losing My Edge" arrived in summer 2002, an effing brilliant chunk of driving dancefloor gold with a spoken word lament from an incredibly hip hipster mourning his increasing irrelevance but defending his bonafides, declaring that, "I was there at the first Can show in Cologne," "I was there in 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City (I was working on the organ sounds with much patience)," "I used to work in the record store. I had everything before anyone." It's hilarious and sad, and you can hear the pride and desperation in every nonchalantly uttered syllable.

Some more singles followed, like "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" and the creepily engaging "Yr City's A Sucker"; in early 2005, the eponymous debut LCD Soundsystem LP, which gathered these singles and more on to a two-disc set, was released on Capitol/DFA, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2006. At one point, even Britney Spears wanted a DFA remix (it didn't work out). Murphy was riding high.

Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem's second full-length, dropped in 2007 and immediately proved that Murphy wasn't running out of good ideas. It's one of the most solid LPs of the aughts, an irresistible collection of heavy hooks laid over instantly enjoyable beats, marked by sorrow and a certain world weary joy.

The LP's standouts are "North American Scum" and "All My Friends." The former is a cheerily jingoistic anthem sung by someone self-conscious of his continent and trying to defend his culture from a bunch of skeptical Euro types, shot through with a relentlessly driving beat and pulsing guitars. The latter is probably my favorite song of 2007, a heartbreaking tale of the inexorable journey beyond cool and into old age. It's impeccably constructed, repeating a two chord build-and-release progression and layering instruments gradually, gaining melodic momentum as the vocals become increasingly desperate and distraught. "You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan/ And the next five years trying to be with your friends again," cries Murphy, perfectly articulating the pain and confusion inherent in the maturation process, and nearly making me cry every time. By the end, Murphy is spitting lines like, "When you're drunk and the kids look impossibly tan/ You think over and over, 'Hey! I'm finally dead!'" and, "Oh, if the trip and plan come apart in your hands/ You can turn it on yourself, you ridiculous clown," and it's like a dark prophecy from the land of the terminally stylish. There but for the Grace of Eno go we all.

Though the aforementioned are the high points, Sound of Silver holds little filler. "Get Innocuous" ushers in the album with a hearty throb, laying the groundwork for the treasure to unfold. "Someone Great" pulses on cardiac rhythms, darkly magisterial keys, and trebly squelches, salvaging a notable hook from the sonic soup. The straightforward thump of "Watch The Tapes" punches through to the solemnly smirking chant of the title cut: "Sound of silver, talk to me/ Makes you want to feel like a teenager/ Until you remember the feelings of/ A real live emotional teenager/ Then you think again," as a Kraftwerky bleepscape bumps and whirs in the background. Album closer "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" is a simple, analog piano ballad (and one of the few tracks where Murphy is joined by some other folks), a paean to pre-Giuliani/Bloomberg Gotham. ""New York, you're safer but you're wasting my time," Murphy croons sweetly, "Our records all show you were filthy but fine." It's willfully naive but catchy as hell and sweet, too; it's hard not to share in the blind nostalgia for a place that never really was.

LCD Soundsystem is the sound of the Big Apple's indie hipster cognoscenti at the start of the 21st century, untouchably cool and consistently impressive. Sound of Silver will, I have little doubt, age well, a sonic scrapbook of troubling times, with echoes of post-9/11 anxiety and post-90s hangovers preserved for future listeners. This is historic music, the sound of a generation crippled by self-awareness and irony but trying to move beyond that stuff to someplace better. Trying and usually failing, but trying all the same.

LCD Soundsystem