Modern Skirts are the platonic ideal of a certain kind of college town band. You know the type: They've been described to you as "y'know, fun... kinda pop-y," odds are you know someone who made out with the drummer, and they're humbly ambitious in a way that suggests local royalty is an acceptable endpoint. At least that was true of the Athens, Ga., group on their Rooney-fied 2005 debut, Catalogue of Generous Men, a document of "O.C."-era indie rock frozen in amber, or at least the sickly yellow of Natty Lite. But whether it was due to encroaching national attention, a desire to honor the daunting musical legacy of their city, or both, 2009's All of Us in Our Night found them focusing on artistic heft rather than accessibility. They acted as if the two were mutually exclusive, and wound up with not much of either.
The band's third LP, Gramahawk, is pretty much a do-over in every conceivable way. But despite surface attempts to sidle up as MGMT running mates, its sound and scope circles back toward the middle of last decade. It points to a time when Spoon-fed types like Tapes 'n Tapes, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, and Cold War Kids were lumped into a formative blog-rock vanguard that wanted to front like a movement when it was really a retreat. So if you viewed Animal Collective, lo-fi, club music, or hip-hop as serious threats to indie rock hegemony, dive into Gramahawk's treasure trove of clunky aluminum synthesizers, polite rhythms, and sturdy Modest Mouse-derived melodies. If you doubt their commitment to serviceability, dig how all 10 tracks forgo any sort of wild bender to clock in between 3:08 and 3:55. Or mock the drum machine clatter that underpins the endlessly spooling, deadpan half-raps "Happy 81" or "Under Bridges and Overpasses" at your own risk-- Cake did have a #1 album this year.
In truth, "y'know, fun... kinda pop-y" is a fairly accurate point. Since Modern Skirts are somewhat tuneful without being overly hooky and seem mostly concerned with bum romance and drinking, Gramahawk at least maintains the familiarity and affability of a talkative house party guest. But as such, its tolerability is inversely proportional to its extroversion. Jay Gulley begins the loosely referential "Jane Child" boasting "This heart is so gargantuan," which itself gives two indications we're dealing with a heavy sense of assumed cleverness. But what's otherwise a nicely arranged hook is done in by his morphing his everydude drawl into a sickly thicket of harmonized falsetto. During "Glass of Water"'s madrigal drone, Gulley declares, "It hit me like I was playing rugby with the Thanksgiving Day parade," the sort of wisecrack that probably rattled around its author's head until it made sense to nobody but himself. See also "Shipshape", which promises a first date of "a mariachi band and me removing your top." Still, it's all so inoffensive and eager to please anyway that it's tough to get mad at Gramahawk or anyone who might gravitate to it. You just can't put a price on local charm.
