"By now," Sam Ubl wrote of Davey von Bohlen in a Pitchfork review of Maritime's Glass Floor, "it's no secret: The man can't sing." At the time, it was a reasonable hypothesis. Von Bohlen was best known as the frontman for Wisconsin indie-emo pacesetters the Promise Ring, a band whose charm relied more on their peppy, ramshackle songwriting and hormone-gushing lyrics than on von Bohlen's timid voice. When he started his new band, Maritime, with Promise Ring drummer Dan Didier, even those frisky arrangements fell away, leaving his vocals practically naked amid the shapeless post-emo humdrum. He sounded like a man who'd outgrown his own style, but had yet to develop anything substantial to replace it.
This is why it was such a surprise when Maritime's sophomore album, We, the Vehicles, turned out to be as enthusiastic as its predecessor was tepid. The low expectations surrounding it might have made it sound better than it actually was, but infectious songs like "Calm" and "Tearing Up the Oxygen" were worthy indie rock anthems by any standard. It turned out that von Bohlen could sing, something that he'd perhaps downplayed to suit his genre's underachieving spirit, and he confidently tore into the material with nary a lisp or tremulous quaver. Add to this the multi-parted structures and the rhythmic muscle provided by new member Eric Axelson (formerly Dismemberment Plan's virtuosic, hyperkinetic bassist), and it became clear that Maritime was not going to be the Jets to Brazil to Promise Ring's Jawbreaker. It was a band where an emo hero went to reinvent himself, not to slowly fade away.
As if in deference to the delicate balance they struck on We, the Vehicles, Maritime does very little to tamper with the formula on this, their third LP. It's an album full of thwacking yet soft-edged rock percussion, marbled new wave synth embellishments, emphatically down-stroked rhythm guitars that retain the inveterate chugging of late-90s indie-emo, gleaming lead guitar hooks, and fey yet assertive vocals. The excellent "Guns of Navarone" might take its title from the WWII novel and film of the same name, but von Bohlen's no square-jawed Gregory Peck-- even his mature singing style has an aura of shyness-- and given the song's vaguely ska chorus, it's more likely a nod to the Skatalites song of the same name. It's a credit to Maritime that they manage to slip ska, not to mention some tangled country-rock licks, into a hard-charging indie rock song without sounding contrived.
The single, "For Science Fiction", is another standout. Its gnarly fuzz bass matches the abrasive sarcasm of its lyrics: "I want to thank God for the science fiction/ For the benediction and the contradiction, all our souls are saved." One assumes von Bohlen isn't a proponent of intelligent design. But more than a bit of bubblegum offsets the song's bile, like the way the chorus dives down through its final syllables, into a pool of lustrous synths. "Hand Over Hannover" is notable for its sharper guitar tone, von Bohlen's voice cutting through it like a dorsal fin (can you believe this guy can approximate sinister now?), not to mention the spry vocal tics ("beat-beat-beating") he sneaks into his lines.
But while Heresy and the Hotel Choir is a creditable follow-up to We, the Vehicles, it doesn't have quite the same impact, for several reasons. One is simply that the element of surprise is gone. Another is that Axelson left the group before Heresy to be replaced by Justin Klug, a competent bassist who certainly doesn't detract from the arrangements, but creates a sub-surface less lively than Axelson's teeming foundation. And finally, while Vehicles had songs as languid as "People, the Vehicles" and as sprightly as "German Engineering", Heresy sticks more to the middle range. There are few outright duds, but songs like "With Holes for Thumb Sized Birds", a surging anthem with a nimble swagger, and "Aren't We All Found Out", a gentler effort with one of Maritime's patented rising choruses, while fine on their own, tend to run together over the album's length. A little more variation would've gone a long way to spice up this fuzzy, sweetly concussive collection of tunes, but this is a relatively minor quibble, and Heresy takes von Bohlen another step further from being "that Promise Ring guy."
