As a frequent proponent of wimpy guitar-pop, I've suspected that "twee" (by definition "overly precious") was, like "emo," a term critics used, not self-respecting performers-- a too-pat label denoting any band more interested in sunny days, clever hooks, Sarah Records and/or Belle & Sebastian than power chords and faux-rebellious posturing. Tullycraft torpedoed my theory three years ago with "Twee", a splickety indie-pop artifact that zoomed in on a whole twee lifestyle with the high-detail focus of a fashion reporter, singer/bassist Sean Tollefson sqeaking, "Fuck me, I'm twee!" An even earlier song is titled "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend Is Too Stupid to Know About". Fuck me, meta-twee!
Tullycraft bring the meta-twee once more on fourth album Disenchanted Hearts Unite, their second for Portland, Ore. label Magic Marker. Sounding like a cuddlier Weakerthans, Tollefson and co-vocalist Jenny Mears sing about completist punk-rock record collections (catchy opener "Stowaway"), getting "indie-famous" ("Fall 4 U"), tearing the White Stripes off the wall ("Leaders of the New School"), the Murder City Devils ("Polaroids from Mars"), and "the b-band queen of the music scene" who "sold 100 records to all her friends" ("Girl About Town"). "Despite my best attempts, I couldn't make you love me with a song," Tollefson sings on keyboard-dorked "Every Little Thing" after name-checking messageboards and comparing his heartbeat to phone-transmitted techno. Such insular scene-gazing may put off some, but will ring true with a tiny, happy subculture.
However, Disenchanted sees Tullycraft expanding its tweer-than-tweeness to encompass more adult topics. One of the stronger songs, "Our Days in Kansas", jumps with slow-dance arpeggios and punky rave-ups from a "disco bloodbath for the ages" ("oh-oh, oh-oh!") to "sometimes I wish we'd kept the baby." Earlier: "I never learned the K.U. fight song," a perfect detail to express the short duration of a failed romance. On anthemic "Polaroid From Mars", Tollefson laments, "We woke up next to different people/ And the difference found us here." But the best songs are still tracks like closer "Secretly Minnesota", which plays with the amusing notion of a formerly Midwestern recordstore employee who passes for a native Santa Monican-- "no one wised to the 4-H clover key chain/ Or just how much she loved the rain"-- while casually quipping, "Ricky says that my band's just a Sebadoh rip-off." The hook is the album's most infectious, and stands up with any of the band's peers'.
While the choruses to "Leaders of the New School" and "Polaroids of Mars" (and, while I'm being crusty, sort of "Rumble With the Gang Debs") are a little too similar, Disenchanted is a solid, self-conscious indie-pop record for solid (i.e. presumably not liquid) self-conscious indie-pop fans. Another of the best songs, "Molly's Got a Crush on Us" ("we almost always play for crowds of 12"), was recorded live at a party. "We're the best band you never heard," Tollefson proclaims, a goofy chorus of friends echoing that Rolling Stone et al. hypeline for bands with two or fewer Pitchfork reviews. Maybe. But crowds of 12 across the country are likely to think so, and that's probably meta-OK.
