About twice a year, sometimes more, I convince myself that indie rock is just deathly boring stuff that I'm no longer interested in. And right on cue, there always seems to be a record waiting for me that wins me back-- at least for a few months. By "indie rock," I mean that bread-and-butter, classic formula that got you through high school or college or whatever other phase of your life during which you were obsessed with it: that old, reliable guitars/bass/drums setup with less-than-crystalline production and superchunks of memory-forming melody.
Lots of albums full of this stuff still see release every year, but it's a lamentable fact that the vast majority of them lack any melody factor working in their favor, be it for want of a distinctive vocalist or a simple lack of compositional imagination. Over the years, I've heard too many of those albums to count, but it all feels worth it when you come across a record that really hits and makes the formula feel fresh again. Sing Me a Song, the fourth full-length by Washington, DC's Hurricane Lamps is one of those albums.
The Lamps get more confident with each album they make, and on Sing Me a Song, they let their punk edge drop to reveal their pop heart more than ever, and the result is an adeptness at catching melodic lightning in a bottle and turning a phrase on a dime. More importantly-- and this is what separates an album like this from the masses around it-- the band also has a knack for arrangements that feel just as substantive as the songs they support. Rhythm guitarist Greg Bennett drops walking basslines while the band varies the rhythms and feels to better highlight the melody. If the devil's in the details, they've got him pretty much slain.
The album lifts off slowly with the controlled burst of "Listen", with guitarist/vocalist Eric Tischler lying breathy harmonies over a thumping rhythm and phosphorescent guitar. "Turn Me On" is a blast of high-octane pop built around an exultant shouted chorus. Tischler's voice is a weirdly ingratiating tenor that muppets out completely when he really lets go (one of the few things I can foresee causing problems for more touchy listeners). He also speaks plenty through his axe, tossing off some pretty decent guitar solos, particularly on "Dive", where he lets himself just wail for a couple of seconds before the band closes out the song. Blessedly, though, he refrains from ever overdoing it-- only once does a whole song even top four minutes, much less a solo.
Tischler also gets off a few good lyrical volleys on "Dive", including these parting words from an estranged lover: "She said, 'Leaving's all I'm ever good for/ And leaving's all that's good for me/ 'Cause leaving's always there when you want it/ And leaving's where I want to be.'" Elsewhere, he helps keep the nerdish personal armor of the underground intact, imploring "don't confuse me" on the pop rollercoaster of "For a Good Time..." and serving up lines like, "I saw you cringe behind your politesse," without so much as a smirk on "Judge You All Night".
Sing Me a Song is a fine entry point into The Hurricane Lamps' catalog, though I have a hard time choosing between it and 2001's slightly rougher Tilting at Windmills when deciding which to pop in. Either way, it's a great record that's at least somewhat restored my faith in the power of indie rock for the time being. I just wonder what will be there to pick me back up the next time I fall off the wagon.
