American Art

Album Review

Weatherbox took their name from a song by Mission of Burma, the band formed by Peter Dayton, the former frontman of Boston punk heroes La Peste. Heartbroken fans found it inexplicable that Dayton had turned his back on the aggressive, edgy sounds of La Peste for Mission's experimentalism. Surely commercial suicide...few foresaw the influence Mission would have. Which brings us neatly back to Weatherbox. Their The Clearing EP garnered attention and raised many eyebrows with its eccentric guitar riffs and juttery rhythms. It was perhaps then unwise to slightly revise three of its numbers — "Atoms Smash," "Snakes, Our Ground," and "The Clearing" itself — for their debut album American Art. Fans may feel cheated, but that aside, the band more than hold their own here. Which means Weatherbox aren't so much breaking new ground as consolidating old territory. A pusillanimous mix of indie rock and post-punk art-rock, the band boldly bash their way through a baker's dozen of tracks, many of which careen right up to the abyss of accessibility before sounding the retreat. The dreamy "The Drugs," for instance, features lovely acoustic guitar and harmonica, over which singer Brian Warren bleats in rather distressing fashion. The untitled fifth track is a haunting ballad, over which Warren emotively rips himself to shreds. "The Dreams," in contrast, are anything but, wakened by the buzzsaw guitar and thundering drums, then whisked off into driving rock. Careening from hard rock into punk rock, on "Wolfbank, Doff Thy Name" the band flirt with emo, with the equally wittily titled "A Flock of Weatherboxes" they dally with New Romantics, while "Atoms Smash" together hardcore and melodic punk. The set's most experimental number, "Trippin' the Life Fantastic," takes the p**s out of funk, the blues, and perhaps religion, before wandering off into exuberant indie-dom. There's always something unexpected on this set, a twist in the time signature, a surprising lyric, a sudden genre shift. Weatherbox delight in keeping listeners off-kilter, and although they're far from the only band out there playing these games, American Art makes for an entertaining pursuit.