Quick, name the last Dischord band you heard hyped. Fugazi? The Evens, maybe? Never? In a music marketplace where, sadly, the chart position that may matter most is who's climbing the port side of elbo.ws' homepage the fastest, a label like Dischord-- purposefully small, resourceful, and geographically focused-- often skates just beneath the world-wide wheel of publicity. To wit, while everyone was busy forming a mid-autumn opinion on Annuals, White Whale, and Matt & Kim last year, Dischord was busy doing what it's done for 27 years: Putting out fine records by District of Columbia bands from a small office on Beecher Street. While you were streaming, the Evens, Soccer Team ("Traffic Patterns" kills), and-- most notably-- French Toast released largely unbuzzed, very good records. Indeed, elbo.ws reveals exactly one blog hosted one song from French Toast's excellent second album, Ingleside Terrace. In an even more damnable deed, Ingleside Terrace was released in October. This is finally our review.
Ingleside Terrace is no groundbreaking album, but it does represent a long step forward in French Toast's short evolution. In a Cave, French Toast's debut as the duo of James Canty and Jerry Busher, was just fine, its ramshackle looseness worn best by Canty's imprecise guitar playing splayed out beneath his sociopolitical screeds and Busher's convoluted grooves building a base for his weary observations. Multi-instrumentalists both, Canty and Busher split drum, bass, guitar and lead vocal duties almost exactly in half. That in mind, In a Cave often felt wobbly and overly stylized.
Ingleside Terrace, though, adds third member and songwriter Ben Gilligan, and that changes everything. His thick-tongued flair and proletarian logic ("I'd be better at kissing if my teeth were all straight") supply French Toast with equal parts Television thrum ("Take Me All the Way") and mid-'90s alt.rock jangle ("Settle In"). Gilligan's addition gives the rest of the band room to breathe, too. Ideas and songs seem fully realized: The pop pops and the sulk sulks, and, over 12 tracks, three strong, separate, ultimately connected voices emerge. Busher, for instance, supplies two of the record's best moments with tracks recorded in his bedroom using loops, E-bow, acoustic guitar, keyboards, and tape decks. Busher's "Treason" and the eerie, perfectly couched rant "Brejnev" are the least rock songs on this record, and they seem perfectly comfortable with that rank. Closing track "Fork in the Road"-- a full-band affair with Busher on guitar and James and Brendan Canty shaping a taut, automated rhythm-- even lets Busher imply a psychedelic oeuvre to French Toast, multiple guitars washing over one another and a stardust of staggered, dissonant keyboards.
But French Toast are plenty grounded here: Even as a three-piece, they sound leaner and more focused, thanks in no small part to the production work of older brother, Fugazi drummer and Burn to Shine co-founder Brendan Canty. The kiss-off opener "The Letter" keeps the bros-in-a-basement rough edge intact, but its hinges swing better than anything from In a Cave, low-key three-part harmonies and a simple, driving rhythm invoking Leo at his most direct. It's a James Canty track that falls perfectly into "Protest Sign", a parallel Busher kiss-off that sounds like Mission of Burma throwing its hands in the air at political reform. Bad relationships and misguided political efforts eschewed by way of introduction, French Toast is free to coalesce as a three-piece for the entirety of Terrace, and that's exactly what they do. Ingleside Terrace boasts impeccable pacing, especially for a new lineup built on the backs of three divergent songwriters. Sure, they don't have a shtick and they don't have a PR machine at their back, but let this humble Dischord entry ($10 post-paid and available by mail order, as always) spin more than once, and you'll wish it was still October and you ran a blog.
