Pretty Girls Make Graves: The New Romance

When I was in grade 12, I was friends with a girl who had a Pretty Girls Make Graves pin on her backpack. I was always afraid to try bands my friends liked, especially obscure indie groups, because for whatever reason I was worried that whatever they sounded like, it couldn't live up to what I imagined they sounded like. This is, in case you didn't realize, an incredibly stupid way to go through life. I didn't try a lot of things. I had long gotten over this fear by the time I was in a used CD store this year and I saw this one filed under "Staff Picks." I thought of that girl from my high school and it seemed like there was no way I'd be steered wrong. I was delighted to find it sounded exactly like I thought it should, and yet like nothing I could have imagined.

This is a busy, frantic, nerve-wracking version of indie rock. There's so much going on here, such fidgety, jittery guitars, thundering drums and skittering hi-hats. Laid on top of it is the sweet, ominous, sometimes hair-raising vocal of Andrea Zollo. The opening track, "Something Bigger, Something Brighter" sets the stage exactly, taking over a minute to unfold, bubbling under the surface, until its fussy guitars and keyboards kick in under Zollo's chorus "Make it electric, make it electric!"

The production adds to the chaos, as parts dodge in and out, creating a rock solid sound collage made up of very particular parts. The ear catches on level after level of the mix, as each instrument does whatever it needs to, yet the whole project never succumbs to the risk of collapse under its own energy... take "The Grandmother Wolf," "All Medicated Geniuses," or "The Teeth Collector." Tough stuff but easy to swallow, because as confrontational and unrelenting as it often is, it's got such good energy, such performance, and such impeccable construction. It's pretty wonderfully ordered chaos. Take "Holy Names," with its smooth, soaring hook, underpinned by that nervy guitar, leading into the title track with its hyperactive MIDI-like hook, one of the best rhythm rock exercises in the set.

I'll never know how I would have felt about it in 2004. Odds are split whether I would have been impressed without really getting it, or dismissive for no good reason. What I know is that I love the slow burn of "Blue Lights" and the pulse-pounding punk-funk pay off in "Chemical, Chemical." What I do like it is that I liked it a lot when I finally did hear it in 2012, that somehow all this sound speaks to me.

Even though "fast-paced synth rock with a female vocal" has become a pretty well-trod ground in recent years, hearing this for the first time really felt fresh. This is a distinct thing, so wholly itself as to be inimitable except in its broad strokes. That kind of thing tends to stand the test of time, as scenes and trends fall away.

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