Between reprising the announcer at the Grand Avenue El stop ("This is Grand," natch) and reciting a Thax Douglas poem on their debut album, I can't think of a band who wears their city on its sleeve quite like Chicago's Bound Stems. (Just listen to the venom dripping from the opening lyric of the long-distance love lament "Excellent News, Colonel": "I found someone... in New York.") Boasting new singer and multi-instrumentalist Janie Porche-- along with armfuls of tape experiments and wiry, elaborate songs-- Appreciation Night is the work of a complicated, unrepentantly local band.
The omnipresent fuzzy guitars will feel familiar, as will singer Bobby Gallivan's lolling country-mouse delivery, but every song has frequent change-ups in rhythm and tone. Even with a track called "Refuse the Refuse", such conciseness is unlikely: Bound Stems will grow up to be pack-rat grandparents with stacks of National Geographic and tins of cat food on their divans. Their meandering was hard to sift through on last year's Logic of Building the Body Plan EP, a format that usually demands a band be succinct (shit, even Fiery Furnaces put their normal songs on their EPs), but here the collage approach gets a chance to breathe. Suddenly, tape experiments like "Pulling on Pigtails", where a vocal practice gets deconstructed over dusty tape loops, seem like a pit stop to take in the scenery rather than an indulgence.
The EP had two strong moments where the cut'n'paste songwriting didn't diffuse a track's momentum, and they're both reprised here. "Wake Up, Ma and Pa Are Gone" glides gracefully towards its final takeoff of wrist-wrecking guitar strums and yeah-yeah-yeahs. "Risking Life and Limb" makes Gallivan maintain while the band sputters and spurts around him before completely overwhelming him at the last minute-- yet even that sounds natural and unforced.
And that's why, even if the best songs on the EP are the best songs here, I'm not mad at them: With the context of a full record, it feels earned. Ask yourself if you want impeccable formal songcraft or if you're a listener who takes a few perfect moments from your favorite songs. The latter will suit you best for Appreciation Night, even if Bound Stems elect not to decide at all. All these songs are a tug-of-war of intentions-- between navel-gazing and catharsis, between pulling the covers up to your chin or opening the front door for a lungful of crisp winter air and seeing what the hell's going on outside. Sounds like Chicago to me, but chances are it sounds like your city, too.
