One could be forgiven for thinking that Antietam didn't exist anymore. Even at the relative height of its popularity, the Louisville-turned-Hoboken band turned heads with legendary live performances but didn't exactly raise the head count of its fans (poppy guitar freakout peers such as Yo La Tengo and Eleventh Dream Day included among them). As far as many of those fans were concerned, Antietam ended after 1994's slept-on Rope-A-Dope, and if the band in its heyday flew under the radar, that's nothing compared to the low profile of its 2004 comeback Victory Park.
Now Antietam have risen once again, and anyone clamoring for some classic indie-rock will be heartened by the arrival of Opus Mixtum, two-discs of new Antietam music recorded by the surprisingly stable trio of singer/guitar hero Tara Key, bassist Tim Harris, and drummer Josh Madell, the band's core since 1991. Yes, two discs, drawn from two separate sessions originally envisioned for two separate albums, one highlighting the band's softer side and the other its status as one of the great forgotten guitar shredders of the indie era.
Yet if there's a downside to Antietam's longevity, it's that at this stage in the game the band really doesn't have much to add to the conversation. Even at two discs, Opus Mixtum hardly overstays its welcome, but the degree of welcome it meets is likely linked to your preference for the familiar Neil Young-does-VU school of indie that ruled the underground in the 1980s. It's hardly a straight nostalgia trip, but at the same time Key, Harris, and Madell in 2008 aren't exactly pushing things forward.
That's not what Antietam are about, though. The band's not out to change the rules but raise the roof, and at its best Opus Mixtum accents the relative timelessness of Antietam's music. Songs like "Shipshape", "Turn It on Me", "Pennants and Flags", and "That's the Way It Is" would have earned a prime place on college radio in any era. One could even imagine a simple song like the instrumental "Arrowhead Syrup" or the rollicking "Needle and the Eye", sharpened with better production and beefed up with beaucoup marketing bucks, as leftfield alt-rock hits.
Admittedly, that's "alt" as in "alternate-reality," as Antietam, accessible though they may be, recognize there's a place for their music and that place will always be under the radar. Modest expectations give the group great confidence when it comes to crafting its brand of indie meat and potatoes rock, as does the knowledge that jaws will drop when Antietam tear it up on-stage. Still, that confidence can only carry Antietam so far. Even the (superior) Eleventh Dream Day quickly hit a glass ceiling before settling for an Antietam-styled part-time existence.
Yet if the band is first and foremost about fretwork, feedback, and churning riffs, Antietam's mellower moments don't sound totally out of place. The cinematic strum of the instrumental "Steel G" seems all about the open road at sunset, while "Red Balloon Waltz" and "The Gate Closed" (both also instrumental) are no less evocative. "Hasten" substitutes the usual Antietam all-out dynamics with whispered vocals and trumpet. "On the Humble" bridges the Byrds with the VU, and "Tierra del Fuego" ends the album on a drifting, droning note, drawing out to nearly ten minutes of gentle folk and dubby effects. It makes you wonder whether Opus Mixtum might have been better separated into vocal and instrumental discs, the better to show off these two complementary sides of the band.
