Pop Phooey
Saturday night at Chop Suey, Indiana's Murder by Death stuck out like a broken thumb. They were, of four acts, the only one without Franz Ferdinand-style "Dance to me!" percussion, the only band that silenced the formidable teenage-girl contingent, and the only one that rocked.
Opener This is Me Smiling finished up while we stood outside, behind three girls who a) had braces, b) wore skinny pants, and c) were accompanied by one of their mothers. As Smiling—shaggy, trendy—broke down their kits, we made a beeline for the bar. There, sitting behind a beefy security dude, was someone's dad. Beside him, someone's mom. And maybe a dozen other people, quite possibly all chaperones. All of this made for super-fast bar service, for which we'd soon be thankful.
Up came local boys This Providence—very shaggy, very trendy—and suddenly the place was alive with female shrieking and outstretched hands. Dan, the love-me singer and spokesman, immediately said something about "Seattle!", the first such exclamation of at least 10. He went on to toss out lyrics so syrupy and high school profound—"If lovin' were easy, there wouldn't be love"—that at some point, we were begrudgingly won over by the bands...undoubted success with the ladies. Kids who can deny effortlessly mimicking today's pop/emo/rock-lite sound—and liquify their female listeners in the process—deserve a pat on the back. Even our girlfriend said they were "dreamy." Lucky for our self-respect, she was joking.
Murder by Death looked like they could have just pulled up in something big, old, and black. Adam, the singer/guitarist, wore a tattoo-revealing undershirt and Brylcreemed hair. Sarah—dreamy—wrapped her arms around an electric cello. Robert Mitchum appeared on a screen behind them, in a knife-fight scene from some old prison flick. And the band ripped right into their first scorcher, like a blow torch taken to sweet custard.
The pounding rhythms, sexy cello swirls, and disturbing images (vintage monsters, damsels in distress) were lost on the crowd. Girls didn't scream, didn't thrust their hands at Murder by Death. No one danced. Adam's alpha male voice and lyrics were heavy, maybe too much for the happy young'uns. We jotted down these snippets: "cigarettes," "too young to die," "can't stop the bleedin'," and, as an introduction, "This is one of those sad bastard songs." At times they even evoked Tool as led by the strapping ghost of Johnny Cash. Following the strong, sad "Brother" [mp3], we wrote: "MbD plays drinking songs for tough-luck guys who've spent their lives on the run. For those warm with whiskey and stumbling toward a cinematic death." We later found that our assessment wasn't far off.
But all good things do come to an end. The Hush Sound hit the stage and, like magic, the collective girl-scream hit the air again. We'd heard several songs from their new album and thought the girl-boy vocal turns were cute. Thought the melodies were nice. We'd wanted to like the band. But hadn't we heard this brand of earnest, cotton candy pop before? Like forty minutes earlier? It's not like they couldn't play or sing or produce a nice chorus, but sheesh. So we were relieved to be distracted: two Dakota Fanning-types (all ages, indeed!) appeared on the other side of the bar-fence and transformed themselves into pogo sticks. They hopped and stopped, hopped and stopped, all inaudible giggles and innocent smiles. (Above: their stopped state.) And for a while, they made—for us, at least—The Hush Sound exactly that—background noise.
