Pitchfork

"O, Calendar" is a small piece of a much larger puzzle. The track appears on the Jet Age's second album, What Did You Do During the War, Daddy?, an ambitious, ambiguous song cycle about an American suicide bomber. The Washington, D.C., power-indie-pop band manage to sympathize with the character's outrage without condoning such violence, while acknowledging that the old means of protest-- marching on Washington, taking to the streets, even to some extent writing songs-- no longer work in the Bush era. Compelling in its convictions and streamlined in its storytelling, What Did You Do is just the sort of album Ted Leo ought to be making.

To its credit, "O, Calendar" may be a lynchpin track on that album, but it stands up well on its own. Beginning with Greg Bennett's pulsing bass and Eric Tischler's urgent rhythm guitar licks, the song bursts to life with Pete Nuwayser's boisterous drumming, which sounds like he's got four arms and twice as many toms. Nuwayser antagonizes Tischler's vocal melodies, relenting only when they reach the sing-along clap-along bridge. "Your arms-- languorous and lithe," Tischler sings as the other instruments fall away, "hold me close, make me feel alive." Out of its album context, "O, Calendar" sounds like an urgent expression of romantic contentment, with only a hint of darker times ahead.